Hermann Heiß

Hermann Heiß: 17th International Summer Course for New Music 1962 in Darmstadt

Year of birth, place

1897

Germany

Year of death, place

1966

Germany

Biography

29.12.1897		Born in Darmstadt.
		First contact with music at home.
1916		drafted into the army.
1919		Returns from American captivity. First contact with jazz there. Autodidactic studies in the following years.
1921		Composition lessons with Bernhard Sekles, piano with Willy Renner Frankfurt/Main.
1922		First performances, Heiß joins the Freie Gesellschaft für Musik
1923–1925		Herman Heiß becomes increasingly involved with twelve-tone music. Acquaintance with Josef Matthias Hauer. Studies with Hauer in Vienna.
1925/1926		Composition E-F#-D for piano, a defining and fundamental work for Heiß.
1926/27		Piano lessons with Alfred Hoehn in Frankfurt/Main.
1928–1933		Music teacher on Spiekeroog
1933–1941		Freelance composer in Berlin, propaganda music. Commissioned work for the 1936 Olympics "Das Jahresrad", performance suppressed, 1937 the fairy-tale opera "Prinzessin Filigran".
1942		Return to Darmstadt.
1944		Air raid on Darmstadt, many works are burnt. Hermann Heiß moves to Vienna and teaches at the Music School, City of Vienna
1946		Darmstadt. Musical and cultural engagement in the Ottenheimer household. Lecturer in composition at the Darmstadt Summer Courses.
1948		Georg Büchner Prize. Teacher of composition at the Städtische Akademie für Tonkunst in Darmstadt.
1951		First interest in electronic sound generation.
1952–1954		Experiments in the (N)WDR studio in Cologne. First electronic works are created: 1953 "Electronic Studies", 1954 "Electronic Discontinuum."
1955		Head of the "Studio for Electronic Composition" at the Kranichstein Music Institute.
1956/57		Development of the Heiß-Vollmer tape recorder for more rational tape editing.
12.07.1957		Foundation of the "Studio for Electronic Composition Hermann Heiß Darmstadt" in the annex of the Städtische Akademie für Tonkunst in Darmstadt. In the following years until his death, numerous electronic compositions and commissioned music for stage, radio, film and television are created in this studio.
ab 1957		National and international lectures on electronic music.
1958		Goethe Plaque of the State of Hesse, Johann Heinrich Merck Honour of the City of Darmstadt.
06.12.1966		Hermann Heiß dies in Darmstadt.

Most of the collection is housed at the Darmstadt University and State Library (ULB), with individual titles held at the Darmstadt International Music Institute (IMD) and the WDR. The Hermann Heiß Archive at the ZKM contains the audio tapes that were digitized at the ZKM in 1996 for the International Digital Electroacoustic Music Archive (IDEAMA). They are available to visitors in the Media Lounge.

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Hermann Heiß

Year of birth, place

Year of death, place

Biography

Mediagramm Nr. 12

KAMUNA 2004

Electronic Sounds

Electronic Sounds

Electronic Sounds

Hörstunde (3)

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