George Dreyfus

George Dreyfus (born July 22, 1928 in Elberfeld ) is a German - Australian composer . In addition to various chorale and stage works , he is known for his instrumental and film music .

Life

Dreyfus was the son of wealthy parents. In 1935 the von Elberfeld family moved to Berlin to give their two sons a better education. Alarmed by the Reichspogromnacht 1938, the parents took advantage of the immigration opportunities offered by the British Empire for Jewish children. By chance Dreyfus and his brother go to boarding school in Melbourne; the parents follow in the summer of 1940.

He attended leading schools in Australia and graduated from Melbourne University in 1946. From 1948 to 1952 he played as a bassoonist at Her Majesty's Theater . In 1955 a scholarship enabled him to study the bassoon in more depth in Vienna . In 1958 he founded the Ensemble for New Music in Melbourne. His main occupation was the bassoonist in the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra until 1964 .

From 1965, compositions for film and television enabled him to work as a freelance composer.

His opera Garni Sands (1966) was performed in Sydney (1972, 1982), Melbourne (1972) and New York (1975), his two great symphonies (1967, 1976) were performed worldwide. In 1969 he conducted a concert with his own works in London. That year he also composed the music for the Australian pavilion at the Expo in Osaka.

His most important works include the sextet for didgeridoo and wind instruments (1971) , which became famous worldwide, and his numerous film scores. He became known throughout Australia for a melody based on an Australian folk song for the television series Rush (1974).

In 1976 Dreyfus was guest of honor at the Deutsche Akademie Villa Massimo in Rome .

Then he devoted himself to stage work and wrote various stage works. His two “man's operas” based on texts by Volker Elis Pilgrim were premiered in 1993 at the Staatstheater Kassel ( Rathenau ) and in 1996 at the Bielefeld Theater ( Die Marx Sisters ).

In 2002, George Dreyfus was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit, 1st Class, for his special services to German-Australian cultural exchange.

In 2009 Dreyfus became an honorary member of the Wuppertal Else Lasker Student Society .

literature

• George Dreyfus . In: Habakuk Traber, Elmar Weingarten (Ed.): Displaced music. Berlin composer in exile . Argon, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-87024-118-7 , p. 231 .

Web links

• George Dreyfus in the Lexicon of Persecuted Musicians of the Nazi Era (LexM)
• Dreyfus in the "exile archive"
• Biography, list of works and literature in the Australian Music Center