Heiner Goebbels

Heiner Goebbels (born 17 August 1952) is a German composer, music director and professor at Justus-Liebig-University in Gießen and at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland.

Goebbels, who studied sociology and music in Frankfurt/Main, is a composer notable for his mixture of styles, drawing from sources as varied as classical music, jazz, and rock music. He started playing Eislerian music in the Duo Goebbels/Harth (1975-1988) with saxophonist Alfred Harth and has composed music for theatre, film, and ballet, although he has since then broadened his repertoire to concerts. His oeuvre includes the opera Landschaft mit entfernten Verwandten (Landscape with Distant Relatives, 2002).

Goebbels co-founded the avant-rock group Cassiber (1982–1992) with Alfred Harth, Chris Cutler and Christoph Anders. They toured extensively across Europe, Asia and North America, and made five albums. In October 1983 Cassiber (minus Anders) joined Duck and Cover, a commission from the Berlin Jazz Festival, for a performance of the "Berlin Programme" in West Berlin, followed by another in February 1984 in East Berlin. The "Berlin Programme" was created and directed by Goebbels.

Much of his better-known work, however, originated from his close collaboration with the East German writer Heiner Müller, resulting in stage compositions as well as shorter pieces (concerts as well as audio plays) loosely based on Müller texts, such as Verkommenes Ufer (Waste Shore, 1984), Die Befreiung des Prometheus (The Liberation of Prometheus, 1985), or Wolokolamsker Chaussee (Volokolamsk Highway, 1989). Goebbels' attempts to fill the space between theatre and opera left blank due to traditional genre borderline drawing has led to projects such as Schwarz auf Weiss (Black on White, 1996) or Die Wiederholung (The Repetition, 1997). The political nature of his work is often referred to by critics. His interest in Heiner Müller can partly be explained by the political character of Müller's texts, as may be the case with his interest in Bertolt Brecht and Hanns Eisler, works by the latter he used in composing his staged concert Eislermaterial (1998).

Goebbels' work is being increasingly acknowledged as he is being played and staged around the world and as his recordings are being published. In 2000 he collaborated with Piano Circus and composer Richard Harris to produce Scutigeras, which received a live BBC radio premiere in the UK. His Surrogate Cities, a work for big orchestra dating from 1994 and featuring texts from Paul Auster, Heiner Müller, and Hugo Hamilton, was nominated for a Grammy in the category Best Classical Contemporary Composition at the 43rd Grammy Awards in 2001. His Eislermaterial won him another Grammy nomination at the 46th Grammy Awards in 2004, this time in the category Best Small Ensemble Performance (with or without conductor).

Heiner Goebbels is a professor at Justus-Liebig-University in Gießen, Institute for Applied Theater Sciences, and at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland. In recent years Goebbels enjoyed the privilege of several guest professorships and nominations for composer-in-residence.

In September 2010, it was announced that Goebbels was the Artistic Director designate for the 2012-14 seasons of the Ruhrtriennale.