HK Gruber

Heinz Karl Gruber maintains parallel professions being a conductor, composer, and vocalist (or “chansonnier,” his particular description). He’s particularly determined with the task of Kurt Weill and Hanns Eisler, which he provides performed and documented extensively. His very own compositions reveal their influence, in adition to that of Alban Berg, Igor Stravinsky, and pop and cabaret music, plus a liberal dosage of Gruber’s very own unique love of life. H.K. Gruber, recognized to his close friends as “Nali,” sang in the Vienna Guys Choir being a youngsters (1954 – 1957). After that came many years on the Vienna Hochschule für Musik, where he researched composition, theory, dual bass, French horn, digital music, film music, and dance. In his this past year there, 1963, Gruber went to get good at classes in structure distributed by Gottfried von Einem, and continuing private research with him for another season thereafter. In 1961 Gruber became a member of the ensemble Die Reihe being a dual bassist (years afterwards he became their Artistic Movie director). From 1969 to 1998 he also played bass in the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra. In 1966 Gruber also produced his initial appearance as an professional and vocalist, a career which became significantly vital that you him in old age. He produced regular appearance for the reason that role using the ensemble MOB artwork and tone Artwork, which he co-founded in 1968 with composers Kurt Schwertsik and Otto Zykan. Even while he continuing to carry out and compose. A lot of Gruber’s early compositions, just like the Four Parts for violin and piano (1963), are serial functions. The melodrama Die Vertreibung aus dem Paradies (The Expulsion from Heaven, 1966) combines a generally dissonant musical vocabulary with strong tips of cabaret and movie theater music. By far the very best known of Gruber’s functions, however, may be the “pan-demonium” Frankenstein!! An audacious, darkly comical establishing for baritone chansonnier and orchestra of children’s verses from the Viennese poet H.C. Artmann, the task started in a Frankenstein-Suite (1970). In 1976 – 1977 Gruber rewrote the collection as a continuing cycle, which includes been performed a huge selection of times all around the globe, in both staged and concert variations as well as with productions for film and tv. Gruber later on became referred to as a author of concertos, generating functions for violinist Ernst Kovacic, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and trumpeter Hakan Hardenberger. Since 1997 Gruber offers devoted himself, together with his composing, to performing and performing like a chansonnier. Like a conductor he maintains a close romantic relationship using the Frankfurt-based Outfit Modern, and functions frequently using the London Sinfonietta, Swedish Chamber Orchestra, and several other organizations. He has documented thoroughly, and his RCA/BMG compact disk Charming Weill, offering dance band plans of Kurt Weill tunes, received a Deutschen Schallplattenkritik award in 2001. Like a vocalist, Gruber often shows up in shows of his very own music, and provides come to focus on the music of Weill and Hanns Eisler, aswell as virtuoso functions like Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire and Peter Maxwell Davies’ Eight Music for the Mad Ruler. Gruber was appointed composer/conductor from the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, from the 2010/2011 period.