About Michael Pelzel

Michael Pelzel was born in the Swiss town of Rapperswil in 1978. After taking his school leaving certificate at the cantonal school in Wattwil, he received his professional training at the universities of music in Lucerne, Basel, Stuttgart, Berlin and Karlsruhe (1998-2009), where his teachers included Ivan Klánský (piano), Martin Sander, Ludger Lohmann and Guy Bovet (organ), Dieter Ammann, Georg Friedrich Haas, Hanspeter Kyburz and Wolfgang Rihm (composition) and Roland Moser and Balz Trümpy (theory). An active composer, he teaches theory at various schools of music and holds workshops in composition at South African universities, including those in Johannesburg (University of the Witwatersrand) and Stellenbosch. He took part in master-classes with Tristan Murail, Beat Furrer, Michael Jarrell, Klaus Huber, Brian Ferneyhough, György Kurtág and Helmut Lachenmann, attended summer courses in Darmstadt (2004-10), Acanthes, Metz and Royaumont, and was a member of the Akademie Musiktheater Heute in Frankfurt am Main. His organ tours have taken him to the cathedrals in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Sydney and Cape Town and to the Magadino Organ Festival. His compositions have been performed by such ensembles as Collegium Novum Zürich, ensemble alea III (Boston), ensemble recherche (Freiburg), ensemble mosaik (Berlin), Klangforum Wien, Quatuor Diotima (Paris), the Arditti Quartet (London), Ensemble intercontemporain (Paris), the SWR Vokalensemble (Stuttgart), the Bavarian RSO (Munich) and the DSO (Berlin). Among the festivals where his works have been heard are musica viva (Munich), the Darmstadt Summer Courses, Donaueschingen Festival, Wien Modern, Klangspuren (Schwaz), Archipel (Geneva), Tremplin (Paris), Lucerne Festival, the Tel Aviv Museum and Art on Main (Johannesburg), Ultraschall Berlin. Several of his works have appeared on radio and television recordings.