Alexander Goehr

Alexander Goehr, composer and teacher, was born in Berlin on 10 August 1932, son of the conductor Walter Goehr, and came to England in 1933. He studied with Richard Hall at the Royal Manchester College of Music, where he formed the New Music Manchester Group with Harrison Birtwistle, Peter Maxwell Davies and John Ogdon. In the early '60's he worked for the BBC and formed the Music Theatre Ensemble, the first devoted to what has become an established musical form. From the late '60's onwards he taught at the New England Conservatory Boston, Yale and Leeds and was appointed to the chair of the University of Cambridge in 1975. He has taught in China and has twice been Composer-in-residence at Tanglewood. He is an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a former Churchill Fellow, and was the Reith Lecturer in 1987.

He has written four operas including Arden Must Die, Hamburg 1967 and Behold the Sun, Deutsche Oper 1985 and his orchestral works, including four symphonies, concerti for piano, violin, viola and cello and other orchestral compositions have been performed by Dorati, Boulez, Barenboim, Pritchard, Haitink, Ozawa, Dohnanyi and Rattle, with soloists including Parikian, Ricci, Jaqueline du Pré, Ogdon and Barenboim.

Premières in the last few years include orchestral works for the BBC Proms, ...around Stravinsky, written for the Nash Ensemble, and a Piano Quintet was commissioned by Carnegie Hall. In 2003 Alexander Goehr completed a Koussevitsky commission, Marching to Carcassone, for Peter Serkin and the London Sinfonietta conducted by Oliver Knussen. Serkin gave the New York première in Zankell Hall in 2005 and later that year premièred the orchestral version with the Ottawa Symphony.

Recent works include an orchestral piece Autuporträt, commissioned by Musikalischen Akademie des Nationaltheater-Orchesters Mannheim, Fantasie, for Paul and Huw Watkins and a series of piano pieces, Symmetry Disorders Reach, which also form the basis for lecture recitals given with Huw Watkins. He is currently writing a set of six solo violin pieces for Midori.

Commissions and Performances
New commission - 2008
29 April 2008, Birmingham Town Hall (world premiere)
21 May 2008, Stratford-upon-Avon Civic Hall