Heiner Goebbels

Born in 1952 and living in Frankfurt since 1972, Heiner Goebbels began his career as a composer by writing music for the stage, film and dance. In 1988 he began composing for the Ensemble Modern Red Run, Befreiung and La Jalousie, his first works to be presented in Paris at the 1992 Festival d'Automne. After a series of works for the stage, Schwarz auf Weiss (1996) strengthened his relationship with the musicians of the Ensemble Modern, who performed it throughout the world. In 2000, he created Hashirigaki, based on texts by Gertrude Stein, and installations for the Le temps, vite! exhibition at the Centre Pompidou. He has composed works for orchestra: Walden for the Ensemble Modern Orchestra (1998), From a Diary for the Berlin Philharmonic (2003) and Songs of Wars I have seen for the London Sinfonietta and Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (2007). In the same year, Heiner Goebbels directed Stifters Dinge after Adalbert Stifter, a production without actors or musicians. From 1999 to 2018, he taught at the Justus Liebig University in Giessen, where he has held the Georg Büchner Chair since 2018. He was artistic director of the Ruhrtriennale international arts festival from 2012 to 2014.