Peter Ruzicka

About Peter Ruzicka

Peter Ruzicka received his first instrumental and theoretical training (piano, oboe, compositional theory) at the Hamburg Conservatory. In addition, he studied composition with Hans Werner Henze and Hans Otte.

Ruzicka studied jurisprudence and musicology in Munich, Hamburg, and Berlin; he was awarded
a doctorate in 1977 for his interdisciplinary dissertation on “Perpetual Authors’ Moral Rights”. Peter Ruzicka’s compositions have been performed by many leading orchestras and prominent conductors.

The Dresden State Opera premiered his opera Celan in 2001, and his musical theater piece Hölderlin was first performed in 2008 at the Berlin State Opera. Ruzicka has been a professor at the
Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg since 1990. He is a member of the Bavarian Fine Arts Academy and the Hamburg Free Academy of the Arts. He was Intendant of the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra (now DSO) from 1979 to 1987, and from 1988 to 1997 he was Intendant of the Hamburg State Opera and the Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra. As Hans Werner Henze’s  successor, Ruzicka directed the Munich Biennale from 1996 to 2014, and in 1997 he was appointed Artistic Advisor to the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam.

Ruzicka was named President of the Bavarian Theater Academy in 1999. From 2001 to 2006, he was Artistic Director and Intendant of the Salzburg Festival. Peter Ruzicka has conducted the Concertgebouw Orchestra, the DSO Berlin, the Vienna Symphony, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Staatskapelle Berlin, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the
Munich Philharmonic, the Bamberg Symphony, the Hamburg Philharmonic, the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, and the NDR Symphony Orchestra in Hamburg – with whom he recorded a cycle of 13 orchestral works by Hans Werner Henze for WERGO.

Also available on WERGO are Peter Ruzicka’s compositions "Metastrofe", „…fragment…“, "Stress", "In processo di tempo", and "Bewegung", as well as "Metamorphosen über ein Klangfeld von Joseph Haydn, „… den Impuls zum Weitersprechen erst empfinge“, "Abbrüche", and "Emanazione".