Harald Weiss

About Harald Weiss

Harald Weiss was born on 26 May 1949 in Salzgitter, Germany. A very young student, he first studied violin and piano playing, composition and aural training at the Niedersachsen Music School in Braunschweig. From 1968 to 1972 he studied musical education, conducting and composition at the State Institute of Music and Theatre in Hanover. Additionally, he completed a course of studies in drums and percussion playing at the Hamburg Institute of Music.

From 1973 to 1976, after numerous engagements as a conductor and interpreter, he worked as a composer for the Städtische Bühnen in Bielefeld. There, he composed, arranged and conducted music scores for plays. Weiss was holding a professorship in the subjects rhythm and arrangement at the Hanover State Institute of Music and Theatre from 1973 to 1983. During this time he also worked as a freelance artist, a screen-writer, a composer and a director. Jazz and Rock music are an important source of inspiration for Weiss’s compositions. Also, his numerous trips (in the context of theatre workshops or tours) to Africa, Asia, Europe and South America have a significant influence on his music. In his works Weiss tries out alternative musical forms and sounds, which do not need electronic devices.

These experiments with the possibilities of natural sound production made him develop exceptional techniques for vocals and percussion. After having created mostly experimental works like instrumental plays, scenic sound projects, "happenings" and "performances", Weiss dedicated himself to the opera in the nineties: 1992, Amandas Traum, an opera about the opera business, had its premiere in the Alte Oper in Frankfurt. Das Gespenst Musiktheater für Kinder und Erwachsene, which he finished in 1997, was as successful as his first opera. Weiss’s conception of both works includes lighting, music, words and stage direction, and it aims at addressing all the senses of the audience. 

Night, darkness and eclipse are central issues of Weiss' "Darkness Projekt", with which he dealt over 15 years. Throughout the cycle, he also came across the theme of light. Reise in die Nacht. Eine Performance zu Wasser und zu Lande in sieben Stationen is a tape composition which was realized in the context of the EXPO 2000 in Hannover and forms the beginning of the series. The instrumentation of the varied cycle ranges from chamber music, as the string quartet Stille Mauern (2003), to large-scale works for orchestra and choir, as is Ode an die Nacht (2014). The piece for soloists, mixed choir and instruments was commissioned by the EuropaChorAkademie and concluded the "Darkness Projekt".

For his compositions Weiss received many prizes and recognition, for example the Niedersachsen Kulturpreis in 1982, the Kulturpreis of Bielefeld in 1984, from 1985 to 1986 a fellowship from the Villa Massimo in Rome, the Isadora Prize 2010 and the Praetorius Music Award of the State of Lower Saxony. His films, too, earned him a number of awards.

Weiss, the freelance artist, composer, director and screen writer, lives in Mallorca since 1984.

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