Sidney Corbett

Sidney Corbett (2006)

Sidney Corbett (born April 26, 1960 in Chicago , Illinois ) is an American composer of new music , electric guitarist and professor of composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Mannheim. Since 1985 he has lived mainly in Germany.

Life

Corbett was born in Chicago, the elder of two sons to a Jewish mother and a Catholic father, and moved to California with his family in 1968. At the age of fifteen he was already playing as a guitarist in various bands in Los Angeles and was soon composing his first classical piano pieces.

After graduating from the University of San Diego with a degree in philosophy, music and composition, where he met Bernard Rands and Pauline Oliveros , Corbett continued his composition studies at Yale University . In 1989 Corbett received his doctorate there with an analysis of the work Hyperprism by the French composer Edgar Varèse . The title of his dissertation was Metaphor Structures in Contemporary Music . There, Jacob Druckman , Martin Brezsnik and Morton Subotnick in particular influenced his own musical development. From 1985 to 1988 he studied in György Ligeti's composition class at the Musikhochschule in Hamburg and received the BMI Student Composer Awards .

After 1987, Corbett initially stayed in Germany, lived most of the time in Stuttgart, and made his way as a freelance artist, music and English teacher. At times he also lived in Paris. First appearances at the Gaudeamus Festival in Amsterdam in 1988 and the Biennale in Zagreb in the same year marked the beginning of his career as a composer. His first symphony Tympan was premiered in 1993 by the Stuttgart Radio Synfonieorchester , from which time further commissioned works and numerous appearances followed. In 1994 Duke University in Durham, North Carolina appointed him for the first time as a visiting professor for composition of new music, where he taught for two years. In the USA, the first CD Long Distance with Seth Josel on guitar was released in New York at the same time , followed by his first German solo CD Waking an Angel in 1998 on Kreuzberg Records in Berlin.

From 2000 Corbett lived in Berlin, while his works are famous in Europe and the USA; Radio Moscow and Radio Tokyo also added his music to their repertoire. With Noach , Corbett's first opera with Christoph Hein was premiered at the Bremen Theater in 2001, followed by another period of chamber music projects a. a. with the Modern Art Sextet in Berlin. In 2003 Corbett met his wife Eva and is now the father of three children.

More recently, he has composed two major orchestral works for violin and orchestra (2004): Immaculate sands , Corbett's Second Symphony (2004) and Yael . Yael was premiered with the soloist Kolja Lessing in Stuttgart in 2005. The DLF Köln held in the same year a portrait concert titled exits Sidney Corbett and in 2006 his second solo CD was released Que hora it in paradiso? , both with Seth Josel as a soloist on guitar. His latest work, the third opera No Stille Except that of the Wind , premiered in Bremen at the end of January 2007.

Together with Stefan Bolanz, Lam Thuy Vo and Rolf Fabian Laumer, Corbett founded the band Vierte Heimat in 2005 , which has so far participated in parties and events for lovers of electronic music in Berlin and Brandenburg, including the Turbo Tanztheater im Tacheles.

Parallel to his main activity as a composer, Corbett has been working as an author of texts on musical topics and as a composition teacher for years. At Yale University in 1985, Corbett was a “Teaching Fellow in Composition”. In 1994, Duke University in Durham, North Carolina appointed him a visiting professor for composition and analysis of contemporary music. Since 2006, Corbett has been Professor of Composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Mannheim. In 2015 he took over responsibility for the program of the Society for New Music there. In 2018 Corbett was “Composer in Residence” at the Daegu Festival in South Korea. In the course of his career, Corbett received composition commissions a. a. by the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Staatskapelle Berlin, WDR, SDR and SWR.

Corbett has a lifelong love of baseball and football. From 1992 to 2000 he was a member of the Stuttgart Reds .

style

Corbett's earlier works since 1997 show a stronger focus on the melodic line. This period culminates in Noach in 2000 . After this time he became more concerned with pulsations, the superimposition of time structures - the rhythmic aspects of new music. This period continues to this day. Singing remains an important element throughout both phases. The themes and ideas of Corbett's works draw their content from literature and the visual arts, which is also evident from the titles. Corbett owes the basis for theological content to his Judeo-Christian roots and his openness to Buddhist teachings and mystical topics in general.

Festivals and performances (selection)

• Gaudeamus, Amsterdam, NL (1988)
• Biennale, Zagreb, HR (1989)
• New Orchestra Project, New York (1989)
• Styrian Autumn, (1989)
• Ensemblia , Mönchengladbach (1987, 1993)
• Gewandhaus, Leipzig (1995)
• New American Music Festival, Sacramento, USA
• Sound workshop, Berlin (2001)
• Eklat, Stuttgart (2002)
• Philharmonie, Berlin (2004)
• Forum New Music, DLF Cologne (2005)
• Kampnagelfabrik, Hamburg (2005)

Major works (selection)

Operas

• X and Y (1995)
• Noach (2001)
• No silence but that of the wind (2007)
• The Big Book (2013)
• The Other (2016), Libretto: Christoph Hein
• San Paolo (2018)

Orchestral works

• Ghost Reveille (1984)
• Trumpet Concerto (1994)
• Yael (2005)
• Exits (2005)
• Among the Lemmings (2009)
• Through a Glass, Darkly (2016)
• Paganini Remix (2019)
• Goldberg Hallucination Remix (2019)

Symphonies

• No. 1: Tympan (1992)
• No. 2: The immaculate sands (2004)
• No. 3: Breathing water (2006)

Vocal music

• Caverna (1994)
• Maria Magdalena (2005-2007)
• Lucerna (2007)
• Our Súnde (2007)
• Psalm 39 (2010)
• Canticle David (2015)
• Two prayers (1994/2017)

Chamber music

• The Voice of the Walls (1993)
• Caverna (1994)
• Chamber Symphony (1995)
• Songs of Unrest (2003)
• Fractured Eden (2005)
• Lines for Malte Spohr (2006)
• Variations on a Thought by György Kurtág (2008)
• Only what Disappears (2013)
• Variations on a Thought by György Kurtág II (2013)
• Oversubscription (Lines for Malte Spohr) (2018)
• Red Traces (Lines for Malte Spohr) (2018)
• Ararat (2019)
• la voce abbandonata (in memoriam georg katzer) (2019)
• Aporia (2019)

literature

• Sidney Corbett: On the search: On the death of the American composer Jacob Druckman , New Journal for Music No. 4, July / August 1996, Schott Verlag, Mainz
• Sidney Corbett: The American New Music Scene: The Subjective Overview of a Composer , Music and Aesthetics, Klett-Cotta Verlag, Stuttgart (Issue 6/98)
• Sidney Corbett: Renunciation is an answer to the terms progress, sophistication and avant-garde music and aesthetics, issue 33, January 2005, Klett-Cotta Verlag, Stuttgart

Web links

• Homepage Sidney Corbett.
• edition ex tempore + nova vita: Vita Sidney Corbett.
• Edition Peters: Vita + catalog of works Sidney Corbett

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Modern Art Sextet ( Memento from May 25, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
2. ^ Frieder Reininghaus : Poetry of Solitude. Deutschlandfunk , February 1, 2007, accessed on August 21, 2016 . 
3. ↑ Fourth Home ( Memento from November 27, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
4. ↑ Stuttgart Reds