As a composer, Thomas Larcher intermittently deviates from the narrow path of contemporary music, strides through spacious stylistic fields and becomes inspired by life itself. (Musik & Theater)

Thomas Larcher was born in Innsbruck on 16 September 1963. During his studies at the Musikhochschule in Vienna between 1981 and 1986 (piano with Heinz Medjimorec and Elisabeth Leonskaja; composition with Erich Urbanner), he already made a name for himself through his performances of contemporary piano music. He additionally worked intensively with composers such as Heinz Holliger, Isabel Mundry, Olga Neuwirth and Johannes Maria Staud.

With his festival "Klangspuren“, established in Tyrol in 1994, the pianist created a platform for the performance of contemporary music in Austria which soon gained an international reputation; Larcher remained director of the festival up to 2003. In 2004, Larcher went on to establish the Festival of Swarovski Crystal Worlds “Music in the Giant” in Wattens. He taught piano at the Musikhochschule in Basel from 2001 to 2004. Larcher began to devote greater attention to his compositional activities following commissions by Till Fellner, the Mozartwoche Salzburg and the Festival in Lucerne. Larcher is today recognised as an internationally distinguished composer of contemporary music.

Larcher’s early works are primarily characterised by his intensive preoccupation with the piano and its tonal qualities. With compositions such as Naunz for piano solo (1989), Kraken for violin, cello and piano (1994/1995), Mumien for cello and piano (2001) and My Illness Is the Medicine I Need (2002) for soprano and piano trio, he establishes new benchmarks in piano literature with his utilisation of elaborate rhythmic note patterns, also incorporating the concept of "deceleration", a particularly characteristic aspect of his style. Larcher is already transcending stylistic boundaries with these early works, deliberately veering off the orthodox paths of the avant-garde. The string quartets Cold Farmer (1990), IXXU (1998-2004) and Madhares (2006/2007) with their original and highly inventive sounds derived from string playing techniques provide evidence for the composer’s emancipation from his original origins as a pianist.

Larcher extended his musical language to incorporate the colourful timbre of the orchestra with his solo concertos Still for viola and chamber orchestra (2002, rev. 2008), Böse Zellen for piano and chamber orchestra (2006, rev. 2007) and the Concerto for violin and orchestra(2008). In Heute for soprano and orchestra, a composition commissioned by the Tonhalle Düsseldorf, the human voice advances to take the place of a solo instrument. Two years later, Larcher composed Die Nacht der Verlorenen (London Sinfonietta) for the baritone Matthias Goerne in which posthumously published poems by Ingeborg Bachmann are juxtaposed with a progressively withdrawing instrumental ensemble. In 2011, the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra premiered Red and Green for large orchestra, a pair of movements with contrasting tonal colouring. Later in the same year, the Double Concerto for violin, cello and orchestra was given its first performance in the Royal Albert Hall during the BBC Proms under the direction of Ivan Volkov. Performers who play Larcher's music regularly include Isabel Faust, Mark Padmore, Viktoria Mullova, Tim Fellner, Thomas Demenga and Quatuor Diotima.

The CD production IXXU (2006) including compositions by Larcher was awarded the “German Record Critics’ Prize”. He has received invitations as Composer in Residence to festivals in Davos, Heimbach, Risör and Mondsee and also from the Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg and the Konzerthaus in Vienna.