Ulrich Koch (musician)

Ulrich Koch (born March 14, 1921 in Braunschweig ; † June 7, 1996 in Tokyo ) was a German violist .

Life

Ulrich Koch received violin lessons from Ion Voicu in Berlin . In 1945 he worked with the orchestra of the Braunschweig State Theater , and from 1949 in the Südwestfunkorchester Baden-Baden, as a solo violist. In 1955 he became head of the master class at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg i.Br., and from 1967 full professor for viola there. He shaped a generation of viola students and produced internationally known violists. Well-known students of Koch include: Hatto Beyerle , Ruth Killius , Vincent Royer , Henrik Schaefer , Hermann Voss and Tabea Zimmermann . From 1990 he worked as a teacher at the Musashino Academia Musicae in Tokyo.

As a soloist he was best known as an interpreter of the works of classical modernism . Of the classics, he preferred to play Johann Sebastian Bach . At numerous concerts at home and abroad he drew attention to himself with first and world premieres, including a. as part of the Donaueschinger Musiktage for modern music and by means of commissioned compositions by Südwestfunk Baden-Baden . Recordings with works by Paul Hindemith , Karl Amadeus Hartmann , Béla Bartók , Jean Françaix , Darius Milhaud , Raymond Baervoets , Karel Husa , Johann Nepomuk David , Miklós Rózsa and others. a. m. document his diverse work. In addition, he has worked for many years with renowned ensembles, such as the Capella Coloniensis, with which he toured Russia in 1961 , the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra , to which he owed his first stay in Japan in 1953, as well as the Collegium Aureum, the Festival Strings Lucerne and the Bell'Arte string trio. He gave international master classes in Assisi . Ulrich Koch also devoted himself to playing old instruments ( viola pomposa , viola d'amore ). Since the 1990s, an "Ulrich Koch Prize" has been awarded to outstanding young violists within the International Marschner Competition .