Klaus Hinrich Stahmer

Klaus Hinrich Stahmer (born Stettin, now Szczecin in Poland, 25 June 1941) is a German composer whose career combines composition with teaching, musicology and the organisation of contemporary musical life. Born in a city that now belongs to Poland, he was trained in West Germany, and his work sits at the crossroads between concert music and other artistic disciplines.

Between 1960 and 1969 he studied at the Musikhochschule in Hamburg and at the universities of Hamburg and Kiel, where he earned his doctorate in 1968. A year later he began teaching music theory and musicology at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Würzburg, Bavaria, and in 1977 he was appointed professor. From 1989 he has directed the Studio for New Music in Würzburg and, in 1976, he founded the New Music Days in that city. Between 1983 and 1987 he presided over the German section of the ISCM. His awards include first prize at the Tokyo competition for contemporary guitar (1985) and the Würzburg Arts Prize (1995).

His early works employ techniques of the Second Viennese School. In the 1970s his style became more personal, largely under the influence of the visual arts. In the following decade he devoted himself increasingly to projects that crossed the boundaries between disciplines, such as music synchronised with slide projections, graphic scores and works for sound sculptures. His most recent works acknowledge non-European influences and revive archaic forms and techniques of ornamentation.

His music is recognised for brief cells and isolated sounds that are repeated and developed within transparent textures, as well as for frequent reiteration and sustained, low sounds, traits that give much of his output an archaic and spiritual character. His works include Espace de la solitude, La voce del fiume, Dedications for concertante and strings, Porcelain music and Kristallgitter. His legacy rests above all on the fusion of music with the visual arts and on his work as a driving force behind musical life in Würzburg.