Ludger Vollmer

About Ludger Vollmer

As a composer, the opera is my strongest weapon. The opera is prospering. There is no place that is not affected by its force. (Ludger vollmer)

Born 1961 in Berlin, Ludger Vollmer began his career as an engineer before he decided to study music in 1984. He studied violin, viola and composition in Weimer and Leipzig and graduated in 1990. Member of several professional orchestras he took lessons in improvisation in Leipzig and achieved a degree in educational improvisation in 1998. At the same time he visited masterclasses in composition with Alfred Schnittke and Dmitrj Terzakis. 1997 he was nominated for a scholarship for Villa Massimo in Rome.

Vollmer's works range from sacred music and world music projects including improvisations to large-scale opera. Among his stage works are Gegen die Wand  ("Against the Wall") after the same-named film by Turkish director Faith Akin, the youth opera Border after Euripides and Lola rennt ("Run, Lola, Run"), based on the same-named film by tom Tykwer. The abuse of religion and its violent consequences are the topic of his opera Crusades premiered at the Freiburg Theatre in 2017. The same year, the theatre of Hagen presented the "Road Opera" Tschick, Vollmer's setting of the eponymous successful novel by Wolfgang Herrndorf. In 2019, Vollmer's opera The Circle, a musical version of Dave Eggers' novel of the same name, premiered at the Deutsche Nationaltheater in Weimar. This was followed in 2024 by the world premieres of two further operas: Zusammenstoß (2021), based on a Dadaist-grotesque libretto by Kurt Schwitters, deals with the impending end of the world caused by the impact of a comet and was premiered at Theater Heidelberg. In Buddenbrooks (2023), premiered at Theater Kiel, Vollmer and his librettists Feridun Zaimoglu and Günter Senkel set themselves the task of working out the relevance of Thomas Mann's famous novel for the present day.

In the composition of his music theatre works, Vollmer developed his compositional technique F.R.A.M.E. ("Fast Rhythm Advanced Music Experience"), a musical-dramatic structure characterised by a succession of short scenes and sharply accentuated rhythms.

Ludger Vollmer was awarded the European Tolerance Award in 2009 for Gegen die Wand ("Against the Wall"). On the occasion of the European Capital of Culture year 2010, the production of the world premiere was invited to Istanbul. He received the Weimar Prize in 2014, and the Thüringen Composition Award 2017. Vollmer was elected president of the Hamburg State Music Council in 2020 and became a member of the Free Academy of the Arts Hamburg in 2024. He lives and works in Hamburg.

• Website www.ludger-vollmer.de