News 63 – April 2024

 
When in fall of 2022, I was a guest at the Wilhelm-Kempff Foundation in Positano for four weeks, the place and its sounds inspired me to compose città verticale for flute and pre-recorded sounds. On the one hand, these consist of a bordun-like central sound, which is played back normally via loudspeakers. However, there are also almost 200 fragments for flute, which fill the room as a more or less dense cloud of sound, as decentralized as possible, in order to embed the listeners in the center of sound and thus make them part of the piece by playing the feeds from their mobile phones throughout the hall. In this way, everyone has their own impression of sound and also contributes to it themselves.
 
To this end, Michael Rogulla has developed an app that the audience can already now download (see below) onto their mobile phones and thus add the feeds to the solo part in the performance: scales, bird calls, signals, family whistles.
 
In the days before the invention of mobile phones, family whistles were a common signal for communication, especially in a place like Positano, built into the steep cliffs, where the upper parts of town were directly visible and audible from below, but where you can still only get to today by climbing laborious stairs. There was also a family whistle in my own family…
 

A first performance of città verticale will now take place on April 13 at 8:30 pm in the Oratorio of Santa Maria Assunta in Positano itself. Roberto Fabbriciani, who recorded the almost 200 fragments in the studio for the app, will perform. The performance will be embedded in the lecture La Tradizione dei Fischi. Racconto della tradizione positanese dei fischi familiari, canto a distesa di Montepertuso (The tradition of the whistles. History of the Positanese tradition of the family whistles, song of Montepertuso) with Paolo Marrone and Antonino Cinque.
 

I would like to thank Michael Rogulla for developing the app for the listeners, Roberto Fabbriciani for recording all the sound fragments for the feeds, and the Centre Henri Pousseur in Liège (Stefan Hejdrowski) for allowing me to realize the central sound (sound engineer: Lucas Lebrun) in the Centre's studio.
 
I would also like to thank the Wilhelm Kempff Foundation for the inspiring time at Casa Orfeo in Positano, Marco and his brother Massimo Predieri for their help with logistics, and Mario and Leni Attanasio for their hospitality on site.

citta verticale: App for the audience

 
 
News 62 – January 2024
 

How does a composer from China or Japan deal with a German text from the 18th century?
At the beginning of February, a music theatre workshop for young composers will start at the Eötvös Foundation in Budapest, where, together with Peter Eötvös and Gregory Vajda, I will accompany an internationally selected group of young composers in their work on a libretto from Goethe's Clavigo.
The participants come from Great Britain, Italy, Hungary, France, Sweden, China, and Japan – a truly global selection that promises an exciting week of discussions (February 12-15, Budapest Music Center). I find the opportunity to encounter so many different approaches to Goethe's text fascinating and am looking forward to it.
 

In the current political situation in the world – also in Hungary, also in Germany – I see this as a sign: Let us be curious about each other! And let us respect the fact that others have the right to be different, to think differently… this is the true meaning of polyphony!

 
 
News 61 – November 2023
 
The crazy events of our time leave me shaken and perplexed, also in view of the loud silence from the music world. It is necessary to raise our voices, and so I want to join in and declare my solidarity with our Jewish friends.
I have therefore shifted a ZOOM-meeting ((Meeting-ID: 834 1871 2210, Code: 862531) with Yuval Shaked, originally planned for a later date for Tuesday, November 21 at 19:30-21:00 CET as part of my ComposerTreff series conceived for the DKV. You are all welcome!
 

Every loss of human life is a catastrophe, whether it is the innocent victims of the October 7 murder rampage or the civilian victims of the elimination of the perpetrators.
 

And so it is difficult for me to return to "normal" or "good" news:
 

Im Cologne, Carl Rosman will play on November 20 the German premiere of chapelle, the clarinet solo from Taormina Block: Container, in the Monday concert he curated for Musikfabrik. Carl was also involved in its premiere at the Kölner Philharmonie last year.
 

The archive of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin (Werner Grünzweig) has brought my archive – manuscripts, sketchbooks, correspondence etc - to Berlin and taken it over. I am pleased that the papers are in good hands. After cataloging, the Robert-HP-Platz-Archive will be available to interested parties in the reading room of the Academy Archive.
 

On Thursday, November 23rd, Irvine Arditti and Ashot Sarkissjan will play the Austrian first performance of 2vl (two violins), which they premiered in June of this year as part of June in Buffalo, in a concert by the Arditti Quartet at Wien Modern.

 
 
News 60 – September 2023
 

Good things come to those who wait: after a long wait, I am pleased to present the book Grenzgänge. Zur Musik von Robert HP Platz to you, which has just been published by Pfau-Verlag. It is edited by my colleague Gordon Kampe and contains articles on various aspects of my work, from instrumentation and opera to the history of the creation of my Taormina Block: Container. The finale is a text by myself: a general introduction to my musical thinking, as I formulated it in a lecture at the festival June in Buffalo Remote 2020.
 

Some time ago, the soprano and podcaster Irene Kurka asked me for an anecdote for her blog – so I recorded my recount of a memorable day during my first visit to Japan in the early 1990s for her. Have fun listening!
 

And yet another text: Werner Holter SJ gave himself a book (edition: unfortunately only 77 copies) with 77 "Resonances" for his 77th birthday on the 7. of July - and I have the honour of being given thoughts on a performance of my Sonnengesang alongside texts on Wagner, Mahler, Poulenc or Gerhard Richter, El Greco, Rubens, Rilke and Celan. A great book worth reading, but unfortunately printed in such a tiny edition that I asked the author to allow me to publish the text about my music (accompanied expressively by a rehearsal photo by Wolfgang Weiss) on my website. A present from Werner to all of us!

 
Finally, I have been invited by colleague Peter Eötvös to give a composition course with him at his Eötvös Music Foundation in Budapest next February. The course has just been advertised and I am looking forward to working with Peter and the young participants, possibly from all over the world.

 
 
News 59 – June 2023

After fruitful work and a beautiful premiere of chapelle (Fernando De Cesario, cl.) in Bari, there is not much time before the suitcases are packed again: From June 5 to 12, I am invited to be a "senior composer" at the Festival June in Buffalo. This includes a keynote lecture on my works and composition lessons for the course participants, as well as several performances, some with my friends from the Arditti Quartet.
Within the festival, strings as well as next and a complete performance of Wunderblock can be heard. In addition, there will be Irvine Arditti's interpretation of Maro, now perfected over 40 years, and also the premiere of 2vl, the violin duo (Irvine Arditti and Ashot Sarkissjan) that is part of the context of my quartet with Nô voice Ryoko no Nô.

Twice I was already invited to Buffalo and twice I had to stay at home due to pandemic, now it will come true!
 

Immediately after my return, a performance of a part from Stunden:Buch (II,2) will follow at St. Andreas in the festival Romanischer Sommer in Cologne (15.6.), played by Bernhard Haas.
 
And on June 8, Mayumi Miyata will once more play senko hana bi, this time at Tokyo's Suntory Hall.

 
 
News 58 – May 2023
 
From May 25 to 27, on invitation of my colleague Biagio Putignano, I will hold a Masterclass at the Conservatorio Nicolò Picinni in Bari (Apulia).
In this context, on May 25, Fabio Cafaro (violin), Emanuele Cacciatore (flute) and Fernando De Cesario (clarinet) will play a concert with my works. The clarinet piece from Taormina Block thus comes to its premiere in the solo version: chapelle.
 

… and from the almost inexhaustible fund of CD-suitable recordings with Ensemble Köln under my direction, once again one of them found its way to the surface as the label NEOS has just published a WDR-recording from 1984, with Carin Levine as soloist: Styx for flute and chamber orchestra by Ernst Helmuth Flammer.
 
 
News 57 – January 2023
 
On the sidelines of my conducting at the Cologne Opera in 2021, the singer Irene Kurka interviewed me for her podcast on the Internet.
Now, as a New Year's gift for the year 2023, her book neue musik leben with collected interviews by her has been published, including the conversation she had with me.
 
 
News 56 – November 2022
 
The violinist Sinn Yang has included my composition Maro in her repertoire, she has now taken over a performance in Oberstdorf into her YouTube channel, and I am happy about the freshness of the interpretation.
 

In the frame of the festival "Orgel-Mixturen" at the Kunststation St. Peter in Cologne, Bernhard Haas played a movement from my Stunden:Buch on October 21.
 
On October 26, più di un sogno for double bass flute (from Sonnengesang) was performed by the flutist Stefan Oechsle in the Helmut-Hentrich-Saal of the Tonhalle Düsseldorf.
 

I am writing these lines in the estate of pianist Wilhelm Kempff, whose foundation invited me to work here in Positano on the Amalfi coast as part of the "artist residency Beethoven". A little paradise, extremely inspiring by its beauty, which fills me with gratitude.
 

At the beginning of December, I will present my Branenwelten 6 hören (i.e. my piano pieces 6 and 7) on tour with pianist Clara Murnig (Vienna) and Augustin Muller (Ircam, Paris), at the Studio Neue Musik in Würzburg, at Steingraeber in Bayreuth and at the Akademie der Schönen Künste in Munich. The program of the three concerts will focus on the transducer grand piano I designed, and will also feature works for this instrument by my former students, Cong Wei, who lives in Hong Kong, and Aydin Pfeiffer. Luigi Nono's piano piece sofferte onde serene... experiences an enrichment by shifting the transformed piano sounds from the corners of the hall into the instrument, which ultimately and finally leads the piece to itself.

 
 
News 55 – June 2022

My Transducer grand piano, enhanced and produced by the piano manufacturer Steingraeber in Bayreuth (since 1852 ) together with SWR Experimental Studio, received a special award: it was voted Deutschland Favorit by the subscribers of the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the SZ Institute and the market research institute Statista.
The reasoning is: "The E-concert grand piano is praised for its sound character, now it additionally inspires the sound designers among the pianists - with novel electronics and amazingly natural sound fusions between electronics and natural sound."
Press release by Steingraeber & Söhne

On the subject of nature, another contribution: In Oberbillig (D) and Wasserbillig (LUX), my open-air composition Brücke for five wind groups will be performed on Saturday, July 16, in a concert beginning at 5pm. To be precise, two of the five groups will play on the Luxembourg side of the Moselle, two others on the German side, and the fifth group will play on the ferry between the two banks.

 
News 54 – April 2022

On May 1, my cycle Taormina Block: Container will be premiered at the Kölner Philharmonie as part of the festival ACHT BRÜCKEN | Musik für Köln.

This container holds six independent pieces that are played simultaneously - around the audience - and increasingly interwoven with each other: a flare-up of different musical centres in space like memory centres in our brain, the Philharmonic hall a projection of our skull, the audience in the middle of it all.
 

The six pieces are:

 
The Ensemble Musikfabrik will perform under the direction of Yorgos Ziavras (soloists: Benjamin Kobler, piano; Thomas Hummel (SWR), sound direction; Dirk Rothbrust, bass drum; Carl Rosman, clarinet).
 
The concert will be recorded by WDR and broadcast on 17.5.2022 at 20:04 on WDR3.
 
 
News 53 – February 2022
 
Roberto Fabbriciani's CD (audio samples) with my works for flute is extremely well received, especially in Italy: it just received the highest rating (Amadeus d'oro) from the music magazine Amadeus, the review begins with the words: "The primal voice of the double bass flute welcomes the visitor to the world of Robert Platz and would alone be enough to justify listening to the CD."

And it is precisely this piece for double bass flute più di un sogno (from the cycle Sonnengesang) that will have its Italian Premiere on March, 2 in Rome (6pm at the Auditorio Ennio Morricone, Università Tor Vergata, via Columbia 1, Roma) by Roberto Fabbriciani, in a concert that will present exemplary flute music from all over the world and from the Baroque to the present day, with Marco Felicioni, Laura Pontecorvo, Andrea Oliva and Roberto Fabbriciani.
 
 
News 52 – December 2021

This autumn was a very dense time for me. In the center was rhpp70, a moving concert in the Kunststation St. Peter (Cologne), followed by concerts in St. Bernhard in my birth town Baden-Baden and in the Old Synagogue in Essen. The Cologne concert was recorded by WDR and will be broadcast on WDR3 on 29.12.21. A review as a portrait followed in the nmz.
 
Around the same time, the double CD 250 pieces for Beethoven, Compilation 2 was released: with my piano piece Kessel, played by Susanne Kessel: a meritorious, important, excellently thought-out initiative, which I wish continued support.
 
Between the premiere of Schnittstellen II at the Cologne Opera and the concert at St Peter's, soprano Irene Kurka interviewed me for her podcast 154, and the recording has been available on the web since a couple of days.
 
Mayumi Miyata received the Japan Foundation Prize in Tokyo and performed my composition for shô senko hana bi at the award ceremony, and violoncellist Oren Shevlin performed with Carin Levine a gripping/precise and dreamlike interpretation of the first three books of my Schreyahn as part of a small tour, in memory of my friend and colleague Klaus K. Hübler, who passed away three years ago.
 
Finally, a brilliant essay appeared in Oper 2021 – Das Jahrbuch by Martin Zenck: Fremde sind wir uns selbst about Medea, Heiner Müller ... and my opera project Medeamaterial: I had agreed this project with Heiner Müller, but my then publisher only found a commission for a chamber opera at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. This then became Dunkles Haus, also based on Heiner Müller. I first gave the sketches and documents for the Medeamaterial (at that time still under the title Verkommenes Ufer) to the Historical Archive of the City of Cologne, where it was at least partially lost when the archive collapsed in March 2009. I very much hope to still be able to realize the piece anyway …
 
 
News 51 – August 2021

On September 18, the Cologne Opera will host the premiere of Schnittstellen II, which will bring me together as a conductor with the Gürzenich Orchestra for the first time. I will premiere three one-act operas by Genoel von Lilienstern (perdü), Matej Bonin (Lunarium)and Andreas Eduardo Frank (the ends). In between these opera premieres, poetry readings will take place, works by visual artists will be shown: an exciting summary of the artistic athmosphere of the Gargonza-Arts project by Michael Faust, whom I also assist as curator.
The premiere on September 18 will be followed by further performances on September 21, 23 and 28.

On the occasion of my 70th birthday, some friends got together to plan a concert. From this concert, with the help of many, a larger project was born, which will take place exactly one week after the opera-premiere:

On Saturday, September 25, two concerts will take place at the Kunststation St Peter in Cologne – one with a selection of five outstanding young composers, whom I had the privilege to help develop their own sound language as a composition teacher, and one with my own works, including the premiere of Sonnengesang for voices (Corby Welch, Anima Mundi conducted by Roland Techet) and double bass flute (Roberto Fabbriciani), the German premiere of Ryoko no Nô with Teru Yoshihara and the Asasello Quartet, and the premiere of the great final monologue from the music theatre project Anderswo (Irene Kurka). Other performers include Clara Murnig (piano), Augustin Muller (Ircam technique) and Angela Metzger (organ).

The exact program can be found here, including other performances of Sonnengesang in Baden-Baden and Essen, each with a program adapted to the performance venue.

News 50 – May 2021
 

it is a great pleasure to report that with spring, rising temperatures and falling incidence figures, musical life is also beginning again. Tentatively only, and most cautiously, so as not to jeopardize the improvement. And so this Sunday (May 30), I will be able to experience the first performance of a work of mine since the beginning of the pandemic in Europe: the Arditti Quartet will play my 3rd string quartet strings at the Zentralwerk Dresden. The concert, a co-operation between Musikhochschule Dresden, KlangNetz-Dresden and Zentralwerk Dresden, is a video production for the Festival June in Buffalo, where I am invited again this year (due to the pandemic again only virtually) and will be put online after the festival in mid-June.

Meanwhile, Roberto Fabbriciani's RHPP CD is receiving hymn-like reviews. Piercarlo Poggio, for example, ends his review in the May number of Blow Up with the sentence:

Losing yourself in the labyrinth of sounds imagined by Platz is the best thing to do these days.

Addendum: The video with the concert recording is now online!
 
 
News 49 – February 2021
 
The new year has started again with more cancellations of concerts and performances, but there is also very good news: the CD Più di un sogno has just been released. The exceptional flutist Roberto Fabbriciani has recorded my works for flute solo on a portrait CD (on the internet site of Stradivarius, each piece can be listened to) and the result is stunningly good. I can only warmly recommend this beautiful CD, it gives a brilliant view on 30 years of my work. Great praise for Roberto! 

 
News 48 – December 2020
 
We say goodbye to a year that has demanded a lot from all of us: the renunciation of contact with our friends, the renunciation of music, restrictions in all areas of life.
But hope dies last, and so I wish you all a Merry Christmas, albeit a quiet one, and a year 2021 that at least partially compensates for what was lost this year.
The video of the premiere (Tokyo, 20 October) of my composition Ryoko no Nô for Nô voice and string quartet is now online as well as the complete concert with explanations!

 
News 47– October 2020
 

At the end of September I spent a few days with the wonderful flutist Roberto Fabbriciani in a Florentine studio to finish the fine corrections on his RHPP-CD, which had been interrupted by Corona. It will be a magnificent portrait CD, which I will tell you more about when it is released by Stradivarius. This was my first flight since Corona, as all other activities since March had been cancelled.
 

Also cancelled is my long awaited stay in Japan to assist the premiere of my composition for Nô voice and string quartet Ryoko no Nô. The premiere will take place on October 20th in Tokyo (Ryoko Aoki, voice, ensemble-no), but unluckily, I have to stay at home because of Corona.
After the concert a video of the performance will be put on the net, I will inform you when the video is available.
 

...and speaking of videos: by chance I found out that the WDR video of the premiere of my orchestral work Anderswo: Wand from January 2019 was not taken off the net after one year as planned: it can now be seen on YouTube.
 
 
News 46– July 2020
 
The video of the Würzburg Mozart Festival podium discussion is freely accessible on the Internet. Now a video with Irvine Arditti is also available on the net, documenting an online seminar of my Würzburg composition class and the class of Prof. Peter Gahn in Nuremberg, for which everyone had written a piece for violin solo. Due to corona restrictions, the seminar and concert could not take place as planned, but on the net we still had exciting conversations between Arditti and the young composers. Each piece was discussed and finally premiered virtually. The video was edited by Jürgen Rummel (Würzburg), the recording technology for the virtual premieres was provided by Hilda Paredes (London). We are grateful to both of them!

  
 
News 45 – June 2020
 

Very slowly and carefully we learn that there can also be a life after Covid-19, even if we still have to deal with distance rules and reduced access to concerts and events for a long time.
 

On 18 June at 19:00 CEST, I will participate in a panel discussion at the Mozartfest Würzburg. The discussion will focus on how Beethoven was able to write his great works even though he was deaf. As access to the event will be very limited due to the distance regulations, our conversation will be streamed live on the Mozartfest YouTube channel.
 

I am looking forward to an interesting discussion, since my two interlocutors not only have a professional musical education, but as the head of the Neurobiology Department (Prof. Dr. Michael Sendtner) and the ENT Department (Prof. Dr. Rudolf Hagen, both at the University Clinic in Würzburg), they will contribute significantly so that we will be able to encircle the topic from all sides.

News 44 – May 2020

The Corona-related shutdown not only thwarted the premiere of my composition class in the Würzburg Cathedral, as announced in my last announcements, but also a number of my own performances, including Branenwelten 5 for percussion and electronics at the festival Images Sonores in Liège and the orchestral work Anderswo: Wand with the “German Radio Philharmonic” in Saarbrücken.
 

My trip to the USA as "senior composer" of the festival June in Buffalo with performances of up down, Wunderblock, the 3rd string quartet strings and Atila for baritone solo was completely cancelled. But we are not resting: I will teach the students in Buffalo via internet and will also give my lecture "sounds space time" on June 3rd. Should this lecture become openly accessible on the net, I will provide the link in time.
 

I am in regular exchange with Roberto Fabbriciani via internet to correct his recordings for a portrait CD with my works for flute. As soon as it will be possible to travel to Florence, even with some restrictions, I will go to the studio there for the final mix and the creation of the master for the CD with Roberto: the recordings are wonderful, we won't let Corona get us down!
 
 

News 43 –March 2020

This time I am not informing you about an upcoming performance of one of my own works, but about a joint work of my Würzburg composition class.
 

On 16 March 1945 Würzburg was heavily bombed. The night of the bombing remained a traumatic event in the city, and since then a commemorative event has been held every year in Würzburg Cathedral.
 

I am immensely grateful to Cathedral Kapellmeister Christian Schmid for his daring to entrust my composition class with the honorable task of writing Nachtkinder in memory of that night of bombing.
 
I am grateful to him for not only initiating this very special oratorio based on texts by contemporary witnesses still alive today, but also for accepting my proposal not to insist on a "normal" concert sequence of a Premiere performance of a new work and then Deutsches Requiem by Johannes Brahms, but to allow the in my opinion compelling interlocking/merging of the two works.
 

In order to prevent undesirable expressions of consternation from the right, I asked our librettist Alexander Jansen to write an additional text for a studio produced prologue, which now prepares the performance when the audience arrives – and culminates in the insistent call of a witness of that night to stand up against hatred and agitation.
 

And so this work has become a truly German Requiem: a commemoration, but also a warning – especially in our so ambivalent times, when the unconvincibles once again rise, blind to the teachings of what happened.
 
 
News 42 – January 2020
 
This special Beethoven Year begins for me in Beethoven's birthplace Bonn with the German Premiere of my Lufttrio for three flutes distributed around the audience. My longtime friend and RHPP experienced flutist Michael Faust will play the short piece together with his colleagues Max Streicher and Sergio Mariani on February 2nd at 4pm (!) at the Woelfl House in Bonn.
 

This year, among other commitments, I am invited to the festival June in Buffalo, USA, as a Senior Composer, and after many years I will finally return to Japan for a World Premiere in Tokyo.

News 41 – October 2019

This time, I’ll have to add a performance: Roberto Fabbriciani had his students Isabelle Raphaelis, Artur Rodrigues and Guido Pratesi play the premiere of my piece Lufttrio for 3 flutes distributed in space at the summer courses in San Marino on August, 7.

In the last week two recordings of mine were released: at NEOS, my conducting of the premiere of Nikolaus Brass' composition similar sounds for orchestra with the SWR Radio-Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart and my own piano composition Kessel (a contribution to Susanne Kessel's impressive project of 250 pieces for Beethoven) for download at Bandcamp.

On October, 9 at 11:05pm, SWR2 will broadcast the recording of my quartet strings (with electronics and soprano), with an introductory conversation between Bernd Künzig and myself.

Two days later is a day of premieres! In Riga (Latvia), Irvine Arditti will play the premiere of my solo airhui, and in Sondershausen (Thuringia), a work for solo violin and youth ensemble will be premiered at the same time: Marchesi III, with Egidius Streiff (vl) and the Ensemble der Länder, conducted by Romeo Wecks.

 
 
News 40 – July 2019

On July 28, Michael Faust will play my two short flute pieces Faust and Holtmann for the first time in Italy, in Castello Gargonza in Tuscany. The concert will be the high- and endpoint of  Gargonza Arts Festival I – an initiative of Michael Faust, whom I supported from the beginning as a music curator (with Heinz Holliger and Peter Eötvös, now also with Philippe Manoury) to enable young talents to network closely with the other arts for a few months in the inspiring landscape of Tuscany. 

Perhaps some of you might be interested to support this valuable scholarship project. Next year, a young Iraqi refugee artist will be invited as an additional scholar.
 

On September 9, the Shô player Mayumi Miyata returns to Cologne after a long time. At the Japanese Cultural Institute, she will play my senko-hana-bi, written for her in 1997.
 
On June 3, the works nominated for the Mario Merz Prize were performed in Turin by the Ensemble De sono futura conducted by Willy Merz. In October, a jury of experts will decide on the prize on the basis of the recordings of the concert, with the vote of the audience counting as one vote. Until October 6 it will be possible to listen to the concert recording and cast your vote on the Mario Merz Prize website. I would be pleased about active participation.

News 39 – Mai 2019
 
The performance of my string quartet strings at the Musiktage in Badenweiler, announced in my last newsletter, was a stroke of luck: Béla Quartet and Experimental Studio of the SWR were, as usual, outstanding, in addition, room acoustics were very beneficial for the spatial sound and in soprano Julia Wischniewski, the ideal voice for the piece was found, celebrated by audience and press ("astral... heavenly beautiful").
The fact that so much top-class press was present is due to the organizer of the Music Days, Lotte Thaler – and the unanimous assessment in the reviews speaks for itself:
"Pizzicati sound away, into the universe. Really delicate, moving." (Alexander Dick, Badische Zeitung 6.5.2019)
"In fact, a literally unheard-of experience." (Blog Peter Hagmann)
"The four strings were spread out in space, their instruments wired to transducers, emanating thin layers of tone threads that condense, twist and interlock until a kind of spider's web wraps around the audience." (Eleonore Büning, NZZ, 10.5.2019)
"The music drifts away into supernatural heights." (Jesper Klein, FAZ 9.5.2019)

At the beginning of June, something special is coming up: my cycle Wunderblock was nominated for the Mario-Merz-Prize and will be performed on June 3rd in Torino by the Ensemble De Sono Futura under the direction of Willy Merz, together with works of other finalists.
The special feature is that, in addition to a jury of experts, the audience can also take part in the Merz Prize selection, not only in the concert hall by ballot, but also online at www.mariomerzprize.org. Of course, I hope for numerous votes from my friends…(concert begins at 8:34 pm)

…And the next morning, I’ll have to get up early to travel via Munich to Würzburg, where I will premiere the composition Befreiung durch Hören by Peter Michael Hamel on the same day (June, 4). Hamel will be our soloist and recite the text from the Tibetan Book of the Dead.
 
 

News 38 – April 2019

My journey to Israel in March was a fascinating experience; I am happy to have learned more about this interesting country and the people there. The five days at the University of Haifa are a treasure to me, the three lectures I gave (sound space time Music of Robert HP Platz; Æsthetics: where does the sound come from and Performance/Interpretation of Contemporary Music) led to productive discussions and are still now echoing in our correspondence.
And my short visits to Tel Aviv and in particular to Jerusalem will stay on my mind for a long time.
 

In April, Irvine Arditti was our guest at the Hochschule für Musik in Würzburg. Irvine played a concert and gave a master class. In concert, he played my 40-years-old Maro in such an mature, dense and intensive interpretation that we are now considering a new recording of the piece.
 

In the first days of May, strings, my string quartet with electronics and soprano, will be performed at the festival in Badenweiler, in the same program constellation that was so successful at the Wold Premiere two years ago at the Beethovenfest Bonn (Janácek – Platz – Beethoven). As in Bonn, Béla-Quartet will play, with the Experimentalstudio SWR Freiburg for the electronics. Soprano will be Julia Wischniewski. SWR will record the concert and broadcast it on SWR2 on October 9, 2019.

News 37 –  March 2019

On March 3, it was 10 years, since the Historical Archive of the City of Cologne collapsed, killing two persons and devastating uncountable papers, among them my sketch-books, manuscript scores, correspondences…
Some of it was identified, restored. Yet, it will take another 30 years to have a complete account of what is still there. This is to the memory of the two persons who will not have the possibility to hope, who will not have this future.
 

In January, my orchestral piece Anderswo:Wand was premiered. Until January next year, WDR is offering a video-live-stream of the performance.
 

The first week in February, I spent at the Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Vienna as a member of the jury in Mauricio-Kagel-Competition. In the final concert of those exiting days, Clara Murnig played a wonderful Austrian premiere of my piano piece Kessel.
 

Right after that, I spent a week at UCSB in Santa Barbara, California, together with my composition class and the Ensemble for Contemporary Music of HfM Würzburg. Apart from works by composers of the two composition classes, I also conducted a work by Clarence Barlow, and the soloists Elisa Ferrati (fl) and Sebastian Langer (clar) played the American premiere of my senko hana bi.
 

Upon invitation by Yuval Shaked, I am now at the University of Haifa in Israel for a MasterClass, with lectures, seminars, teaching composition. I’ll have lots to tell…
 
 
News 36 – December 2018 / January 2019

 
For some time, you have not heard from me: the new regulations for data security in Europe do need some attention, and my composing had priority. Anyway - I do not take these things too lightly, and I assure you that my internet site does not have any commercial function and that therefore these news to my friends are nothing but what they are called: news to my friends. The file with e-mail addresses is on my personal computer, to which only I myself have access. It is sent to Jan Ivar Œyulvstad (Naviolab) in an updated version every time that he sends out the news for me. He erases the file directly after sending the news out. Apart from the names and e-mail addresses, no other data are in the file. On my internet site, you have easy access to a button in case you want to stop receiving my mails.
 

Up to now, these news were strictly reserved to announcing world premieres and first performances of my pieces. In this way, my recording of Debussy/Abrahamsen with Bamberger Symphoniker and my (late) conducting debut at Oper Köln (Schnittstellen I) remained unmentioned – to mention only two important events of this now ending year. In the future, these news will widen up a bit.
 

I will start the new year with the world premiere of a new orchestral piece: on January 12, 2019, Bas Wiegers will conduct Anderswo: Wand (WDR Sinfonieorchester, Klaus-von-Bismarck-Saal, Funkhaus Köln). The piece was written upon a comission from WDR (Harry Vogt) and SR (Benedikt Fohr). The performance will be transmitted live on WDR3. The Saarbrücken performance is planned for May 29, 2020.  Find here my short text about this piece.
 
 
News 35 – May 2018
 

In these days, 17 years after disbanding the ensemble, the long awaited CD with Klarenz Barlow’s brillant computer/language-adventure Im Januar am Nil (1981-84) will be published by World Edition. I conducted the recording with Ensemble Köln in 1988.

On May 5, Ensemble Parallax will play the first performance in the US of my piece for string trio and optinal flute in the distance, Broken Book Skizze (1999). The concert will be directed by Peyman Farzinpour.
 
 
News 34 – March 2018
 

After two intensiv days of work at Ircam (Paris), optimizing the software of Branenwelten 6, I am now looking forward to a very special performance: Clara Murnig, piano (together with Maurice Oeser, who had perfectly run the electronic part of strings in the first performance last September), will play for the first time a complete rendering of Unter Segel Branenwelten 6 hören, a pianistic landscape of 45’ including the three susequent piano pieces number 5, 6 and 7.

The concert (9:00 pm) will be part of Piano-Night (from 7:30 pm) in the chamber music hall of Steingraeber, the piano manufacture in Bayreuth (Friedrichstrasse 2).

Clara will play on the "Transducer Grand-Piano", a Midi-instrument, enhanced according to my suggestions by built-in transducers.

News 33 – November 2017
 
Following a concert in the new Milan domicil of MdI-Ensemble with the flute-&-clarinet-version of senko-hana-bi and dur moll, we keep rehearsing for a concert on November, 10 in the festival Trieste Prima with the Italian premiere of the entire cycle dur moll hören .
 
One week later, on November, 19, Jürgen Ruck will play the world premiere of my cappricio for guitar PoGo at the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the museum.
 
 

News 32 – September 2017
 
For September, 23 Beethovenfest Bonn is hosting a program with the world premiere of my now 45’ long string quartet with soprano and electronics, strings. The piece was written upon a comission by Beethovenfest (Nike Wagner), funded by Kunststiftung NRW (Hajo Wagner). For the text, I used two poems that Berlin author Alban Herbst gave to me for this purpose.
 
Béla-Quartet (Lyon) will perform the premiere with Eva Suskova (soprano) and Maurice Oeser & Simon Spillner (Experimentalstudio des SWR).
 

The piano manufacture Steingraeber has built a Midi Grandpiano with fixed transducers, following my indications, and this wonderful instrument will now be on stage for the Italian premiere of my piano works Unter Segel Branenwelten 6 at the world’s largest instrumental fair Cremona Mondo Musica on September, 29.
 
Clara Murnig, meanwhile an expert of my piano works, will play the pieces together with Maurice Oeser, who will be in charge of the live-electronics.
 
 

News 31 – May 2017

On April 6, Kim van den Brempt played the Belgian premiere of hören for piano and electronics at the Espace Senghor in Brussels. The Centre Henri Pousseur (Liège) took care of the technical part (Gilles Doneux).
 
On June 1st, the same musicians will play the first performance in the Netherlands in Maastricht.
 
Branenwelten 3 (oboe, clarinet & bassoon) had it’s first performance in Croatia in the frame of the Zagreb Biennale on April 29, with the Zagreb Woodwind Trio (Zarko Perisic).
 

And a very special premiere is coming up for May 20 in Stuttgart: Clara Murnig (piano) and Robert Hofmann (electronics) will play Branenwelten 6 for the first time on a Midi-Grand-Piano especially built according to my suggestions and needs for this work by Steingraeber piano-manufacturers.

The technicians of Steingraeber checked and improved the positions of transducers – and built them in for good, so that this Midi-Grand-Piano is the ideal instrument for (not only) my work.
Now it really exists: the piano of my dreams – and electronics may now go new ways altogether: no need anymore for a separation of instrument and electronics. The natural instrumental sound and electronics become ONE!

News 30 – February 2017
 

Since my last news, the German Composers Union (DKV) appointed me as a member of curatorium of the newly founded Musikfonds.

On February 22, SWR will broadcast (SWR2, 8:03 pm) a two hour long Werkgespräch between Lotte Thaler and me as conductor of Gustav Mahler’s Adagio from his 10th Symphony. Using my own recording with the German Radio-Philharmonic (Saarbrücken, October 2014), we dicuss the piece, its contemporary context and its very special conditions of composition – which leads even to so far as to unknown details…

News also from the composer Robert HP Platz: Kim van den Brempt will play the first Belgian performance of my 7th piano piece hören – tombeau de Boulez, on April, 6 in the Espace Senghor, at Bruxelles. The technique will be run by Jean-Marc Sullon (Centre Henri Pousseur, Liège), with whom I have realised the electronic part last year.

And the CD with Bernhard Haas’ recording of a movement from Stunden:Buch, announced but delayed before, has finally been put on the market!

On November 2, Ex Novo-Ensemble will play the first Italian performance of dur moll in the Sigmar-Polke-show in Palazzo Grassi in Venezia. dur has already been first performed two days after the Cologne world premiere at Teatro La Fenice, now moll and the simultaneous performance of both pieces inspired by Polke will follow: dur moll.
 

On November 10, Clara Murnig (piano) and Robert Hofmann (electronics) will play the first performance of the non-interactive (thus playable on a normal non-midi-piano) version of Branenwelten 6 during the Tage zeitgenössischer Klaviermusik at the Arnold-Schönberg-Center (Musikuniversität, Vienna). Also for the first time, the initially intended continuum of Unter Segel and Branenwelten 6 will be heard: the first note of the latter is the last note of the first piece.
 

Finally, on November 18, E-MEX Ensemble will play a concert in the Japanese Cultural Center in Cologne, including the World Premieres of hören (piano & electronics) and the simultaneous version oft he entire cycle dur moll hören.
 
On the 2nd of July, the second volume of 250 pieces for Beethoven, a project of Bonn-based pianist Susanne Kessel, will appear in Edition Musica Ferrum, including my contribution Kessel. After being premiered on February 25, the piece was again on a program in Bonn on May 1st, and will be played on July 2nd. After the publication in this collection, a separate edition will appear as usual with Ricordi. 

On the 3rd of July, Ensemble E-MEX will play selected chamber music works of mine in a concert dedicated to my upcoming 65th birthday. The concert will take place in Galerie Holtmann, and two works, inspired by serigraphies with the same titles by painter Sigmar Polke, will be premiered: dur (for flute and clarinet) and moll (for string trio). For this occasion, both works by Polke will be presented in the gallery.
Shortly after, dur will receive it's first performance in Italy (July 6, 2016), in Venice at La Fenice, played by members of Ex Novo Ensemble.

 
News 26 – January 2016

My musical new year will start with another stay at Ircam in Paris, to realise a more simple, non-interactive (no midi-instrument necessary) version of Branenwelten 6 for piano and live electronics. Clara Murnig will play the World premiere during the Mauricio-Kagel composing competition in Vienna on February, 12 (University of Music, Vienna).

This time, my stay at Ircam will be a special one, so short after the death of Pierre Boulez who had founded this magnificent institution. Boulez and I knew each other since 47 years... hardly possible to express how much I learned from him, how much I owe him. I bowe in respect for his life’s achivement.

Immediately after my stay at Paris, François Leleux will play my oboe concerto Blau See (DSO, Franck Ollu) in the festival Ultraschall in Berlin (January, 24).

One day later, the ensemble of the International Ensemble Modern Academy (IEMA) will play a portrait concert with my works at the Studio for New Music in Würzburg, including the (interactive) original version of Branenwelten 6 (Neus Estarella Calderón, piano; Augustin Müller (Ircam electronics), played on a fantastic midi-instrument, especially prepared and placed to our disposal for this piece by the piano-manufacture Steingraeber, and the cycle Wunderblock.

This piece will have it’s French premiere (complete version) in Paris on January, 31 with Ensemble L’Instant Donné.

One more World premiere: on February 25, Susanne Kessel will play the world premiere of Kessel for piano as number 50 of her 250 pieces for Beethoven.

And finally, the encyclopedia Komponisten der Gegenwart (KdG) recently published Egbert Hiller’s excellent entirely new, enriched and updated article (begun by Henning Eisenlohr) about me.

News 26 – December 2015

Each year in December, Villa Massimo organizes a concert in Rome’s „Auditorio“. After my stay as a guest of honour in summer 2014, Ensemble Modern played, in December 2014, in a program with works of the awardees, of Johann Sebastian Bach, Salvatore Sciarrino, and my cycle Wunderblock.

One year later now, a CD documents last year’s concert, and so the CD with Ensemble Modern playing the integral version of Wunderblock is now available from Villa Massimo (Allegra Giorgolo, Responsabile Stampa e Comunicazione, giorgolo @ villamassimo.de).
 

Apart from that, there were some first performances recently:

Naoyuki Manabe played the Chinese first performance of senko-hana-bi on September, 18 in the Shanghai Sheng Festival.

During the Forum Ircam au Brésil (Sao Paulo), Gilson Antunes played the Brasilian first performance of Closed Loop for guitar and live-electronics (November, 4). 

This piece also had its first French performance in Aubervilliers on December, 3 (Clara Parolini, guitar, and Remmy Cannedo, IRCAM electronics).

News 25 – July 2015

Last year, in October, Heinz Holliger was the soloist of the world premiere of my oboe concerto Blau See, which I conducted with the German Radio Philharmonic Saarbrücken/Kaiserslautern in a studio-concert of the radio SR.
 
For the occasion, I also wrote an encore for Holliger, into which I later integrated the central duo from Blau See for oboe and a distant English Horn.
 
On July 29, Heinz Holliger will play the world premiere of this augmented encore: See, together with Marie-Lise Schüpbach (EH) in a concert of the festival Sommerliche Tage in Hitzacker. 


News 24 – February 2015
 
This February, there will be two interesting first performances of my works in the USA: On February 16, Klarenz Barlow and the University of California in Santa Barbara will host the first performance in the US of my piano-piece with Live Electronics Branenwelten 6. Pianist will be Cristina Valdes, technical assistance: Lorenz Schwarz.
 
The artists will present the same program on February 18 at Stanford University, on invitation by the Doyen of Computermusic, John Chowning.
 
Julia Tai will conduct the Seattle Modern Orchestra on February 28 with the first US performance Wunderblock, the entire cycle as well as seperate movements (next for alto flute solo and Kiefer for bass clarinet and percussion). Pedagogical events prior to the concert will also feature Sekundenstücke from Wunderblock.
The February 28 concert can be found for one week on the internet-site of the ensemble.
 
Goethe-Institut sponsors the voyage to California and Seattle.
 
 
News 23 – October 2014

On September 13, my cycle for organ Stunden:Buch was premiered in the Cologne Cathedral. Unfortunately, the final movement for choir, partially written on texts by Pope Francis, had to be cancelled.

The second performance will therefore turn into the First performance of the entire cycle including the choir. On November 2 at 4pm, Winfried Bönig (organ) and the Choirs of the cathedrals in Würzburg (Ch. Schmidt) and Cologne (E. Metternich) will perform the cycle in the Würzburg Cathedral.

Pfau-Verlag has published all my texts, from 1972 until 2014: ...weil die Welt und wir mit ihr so sind • Texte zur Musik 1972-2014. The editors are Stefan Fricke and Hella Melkert. The volume (ISBN 978-3-89727-509-6) has 350 pages and costs 35,- €.

News 22 – October 2014

On October 10, I’ll conduct the first performance of Blau, See for oboe and orchestra with the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie in Saarbrücken, Germany. Soloist is Heinz Holliger, for whom I wrote the piece.

Together with Benedikt Fohr, the orchestra’s director, I was able to „compose“ all oft he program: we’ll play Gustav Mahler’s Adagio from his 10th symphony before my piece. After the intermission, I’ll conduct Philipp Maintz’ Archipel and finally Charles Ives’ 3rd Symphony – two inhabitants of my house altar and one of my students…

The concert will be broadcast live (8pm ECT) by SR2 KulturRadio, a podcast is available for seven days after the concert on the internet site of Saarländischer Rundfunk.

News 21 – August 2014

This month, a CD will be published by Edition Zeitklang with the movement of my organ cycle Stunden:Buch that I had written first in 1999. The organist is Berhard Haas, who also played the first performance of the piece in 2001.

Since then, the piece has grown to an entire cycle of approx. 50’, with an epilogue for double choir. For this epilogue, I have composed two alternative scores: a highly dramatic piece for a professional choir upon texts from the Apocalypse of St. John (advice in text research: Mons. Massimo Palombella) and a piece for two boy choirs that gradually dissolves the sound in the vast space of the cathedral. For the texts here, I made a collage of prayers and sermons (among others by Pope Francis).

This second piece was supposed to be premiered with the entire organ-cycle in the Cologne Cathedral on September 13. Since the choir will sing in the formal introduction of Cologne’s new archbishop exactly one week later, the first performance might have to be postponed to a later date.

News 20 – January 2014

Just before christmas, I had the chance to see again some of my sketches that seemed to have been destroyed totally in the crash oft he Historical Archives of Cologne in 2009. Although they certainly were far from beeing complete: to me it was a moving moment to hold them in my hands again, a moment full of hope.

I am writing these lines in studio 6 of Ircam, where - with the help of Augustin Muller - I am completing the live-electronic part of my guitar-piece Closed Loop for its World Premiere (feb 2, 11:00 am, Tonhalle Düsseldorf). The electronic concept is based on my experiences with Branenwelten 5 and 6, making the electronic sounds come just as the natural instrumental sound from the instrument itself, without any loud-speakers. Maurice Dupont, Luthier in Paris, built us a wonderful instrument with all the technique invisibly installed.

News 19 – December 2013

In fall, I started working at the Hochschule für Musik in Würzburg as professor for composition and conducting the ensemble for contemporary music. My first concert there (within the „Tage Neuer Musik" Würzburg, with works by Hans Werner Henze) on November 15 was recorded by Bayerischer Rundfunk.

Last summer, I worked on completing my cycle Stunden:Buch as guest of honour at Villa Massimo in Rome (world premiere: Cologne Cathedral, September 13, 2014).

In September, a portrait-CD of Philipp Maintz appeared at WERGO, including my recording of his fluchtlinie for baritone (Otto Katzameier) and ensemble (Scharoun-Ensemble of Berlin Philharmonic).

There are, however, radio-stations who willingly cut back on their possibilities. Untouched by any reason or cultural competence, the director of SWR, Boudgoust, and his entourage have decided to dissolve one of the best orchestras of the world: SWR-Orchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg. A letter of protest by Michael Gielen, signed by 162 conductors was published by Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on November 13. The insane decision in the meanwhile was reconfirmed. Yet, we will not stop to call incompetence and cultural neglect by their names.

News 18 – June 2013

One of Robert HP Platz‘s first demanding questions was, could I put into words the difference between my own performances of contemporary music and those of classical soloists who often "stray" into the late 20th and 21st century domain (unlike thirty or so years ago, when I began my work, many classical soloists now include a good percentage of new music in their repertoire). In order to provide an answer to this question, I had to look back over some of the many experience's I have had working with composers.

This is a quotation from Techniques of Violin Playing, written by Irvine Arditti and me in years of work, and finally published by Bärenreiter-Verlag in these days, supported by Art Mentor Foundation in Lucerne and Maja-Sacher-Stiftung in Basel.

Among other topics, Irvine Arditti is writing about Bowing, Harmonics, Tablature notation and Rhythm. Apart from concept and translations, I joined in with a chapter about Basics, one about "Violin and Electronics", plus fingering charts for both Violin and Viola. 

At the end of the last year, I finished the last missing piece of my cycleBranenwelten, which now consists of 6 scores:
Branenwelten 1 for strings
Branenwelten 2 for flute solo
Branenwelten 3 for oboe, clarinet, bassoon
Branenwelten 4 for trumpet, horn, trombone
Branenwelten 5 for percussion with live electronics (Centre Henri Pousseur, Liège)
Branenwelten 6 for piano with live electronics (Ircam)
Both electronic pieces are without loudspeakers: the electronic sounds are coming from the instrument itself, in the case of the piano, the sound-board is itself transformed into the membrane of a loudspeaker.
 
The world premiere of this last piece, Branenwelten for percussion with live electronics is coming up on May, 1 in the Philharmonie in Cologne. The soloist is Johannes Fischer. In the same program, apart from pieces by Iannis Xenakis, I will conduct also the first simultaneous performance of Branenwelten 1, 5, 6, for piano and percussion (each with live electronics) and strings. I'll be conducting Ensemble Resonanz, the soloists are Nicolas Hodges (piano) and Johannes Fischer (percussion). Technical direction (Ircam) is signed by Augustin Muller.
 
Before that, I'll be in Paris, conducting the Orchestre du Conservatoire (Atelier de Composition, April, 4). On this occasion, I'll already work with Jean-Pierre Neuburger, the pianist of the French premiere of Branenwelten 6 (Ircam, June, 1).
 
An interview that I'll give on France Musique on March, 25 at about 21:40p.m. can be received world-wide in the net.

Just in time for the holiday season, a CD production with the Philharmonic Orchestra of the State Theatre of Cottbus under direction of Evan Christ has been issued, featuring 24 short works that were premiered during the last four years.

The idea to round up for four years each concert program of works from the past by a work from a living composer should bear fruit not only in Cottbus and its magnificent theatre.
On the second CD of the double-pack (published by TELOS, TLS 166), you will find my orchestra piece Blau, See I, premiered in September 2010.
 

A musically rich year is coming to it's end: it started for me with giving the final touches to Branenwelten 6for piano and live electronics at Ircam (Paris) and the premiere of this work in the ECLAT-Festival in Stuttgart. Further premieres included Epilog, an epilogue to my organ-cycle Stunden:Buchduring the Easter-Vigil in St Peter (Cologne), my third string-quartet strings (Echo VII) in the Romanic Night in St Maria im Kapitol (Cologne) and a smaller and shorter version of my open-air composition Brücke, played from the steeples of the Cathedral, Magnus- and Trinity-Churches in Worms (Germany).
 

Following my piano-piece, I received an invitation from Ircam to do research on transposing the principles applied in the piano piece (electronic music without loud-speakers) to the guitar.
In between my stays in Paris, I travelled to Mexico (supported by Goethe-Institut) for the Mexican premiere of Branenwelten 6 (Festival Visiones Sonoras, Morelia) and a lecture on the Conlon-Nancarrow Chair of the National Conservatory in Mexico City.
Until Christmas, I'll be working in the studio of Centre Henri Pousseur in Liège (Belgium) on the last missing link in the cycle: Branenwelten 5 for percussion and electronics, to be premiered by Johannes Fischer in Cologne next May.

The Arditti String Quartet will play the world premiere of my third string quartet strings (Echo VII) on July 6, 2012. The concert will take place in the basilica St. Maria im Kapitol in Cologne as part of the "Romanische Nacht" (Roman Night). It starts at 20:00 and will be broadcast live on WDR3.
 
On July 10, the Label NEOS will release the cd Toshio Hosokawa: Solo Concertos Vol. 2 (Neos 11208) with recordings I conducted with the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg and the soloists Jeroen Berwaerts (trumpet), Olivier Dartevelle (clarinet) and Rohan de Saram (cello).
 
On July 2 at 23:03, SWR2 JetztMusik will broadcast a feature by Egbert Hiller about the genesis of my Branenwelten 6 for piano and live electronics (Ircam), premiered on February 12, 2012 in Stuttgart (Festival Eclat).
 
In the net, you can find a nice video of my composition Leere Mitte, with Garth Knox and the Centre Henri Pousseur (Liège), recorded at the Festival Ars Musica in Brussels (https://vimeo.com/43455485).

On February 12 (3:30 pm), Nicolas Hodges will premiere a new part of my cycle Branenwelten in the festival Eclat (SWR, Stuttgart).  
 
Branenwelten 6 is for piano and live electronics. This piece does something totally new: instead of confronting the piano with a seperate sound-world coming from loud-speakers somewhere in the hall, the sound-board of the piano is transformed into the membrane like in a loud-speaker and all the sounds will be coming from the piano itself. Moreover, it is not only the sound oft he piano that will be thus enriched but also the sensitivity of the pianist as, for the first time ever, an interactive connection between pianist and electronics will be possible. The pianist's attack will interact with the sounds, electronics are finally becoming a musical instrument.
 
The work was made possible by a commission from Ircam (Paris), SWR (Stuttgart) and CMMAS (Morelia, Mexico). Technical assistance came from Robin Meier (Ircam). After the premiere, my work-diary will be published on my internet site.
 
The author Egbert Hiller has accompanied the work's development. His report will be broadcast on SWR on April 9, 2012 in the frame of SWR Jetztmusik at 11:03 pm. The concert recording will be broadcast by SWR on April 25 at 11:03 pm. Hiller is also the author of a more general portrait for BR Klassik, to be broadcast on May 5 at 10:05 pm in the frame of "Horizonte".

On December 10, SWR2 will broadcast a conversation with Lotte Thaler about my works and my life as a composer and conductor (Treffpunkt Klassik Extra, 10:30-12:00 a.m.), complemented by recordings of works of mine and works of other composers under my direction.

On January, 27 my short study Carillon will have its world premiere in Maastricht, played by the carillon of the Sint Servaas-Basilika. This new composition and the performance of a 6-channel version of my composition Leykams Turm as an installation in the Maastricht city center are part of a meta composition for all church bells and carillons in Maastricht, a project of the students of my Maastricht composition class. Taking part are among others the carillons of the Stadhuis and of Sint Servaas, the world’s largest transportable carillon will play on the Vrijthof, and about 1000 children will form the largest ever orchestra of hand bell players (27.1.2012, 11:30-12:00 a.m.).

Two concerts with the Ensemble Resonanzare coming up: on November, 5 at the Tonhalle Düsseldorf (Robert-Schumann-Saal) with the world premiere of Branenwelten 1+2 for flute (Carin Levine) and string orchestra, a world premiere by Nikolaus Brass as well as works by Giacinto Scelsi and Enno Poppe, and on December, 3 at the Kampnagel-Fabrik in Hamburg with the same pieces by Brass and Platz and the world premiere of Nader Mashayekhi's Irdische Offenbarung for soprano, improvising voice, brass, percussion and string orchestra. 

This fall, I made some totally new musical experiences. In a project of Goethe Institute, Young Composers in Southeast Asia, I conducted the Ensemble Mosaik (Berlin) and the gamelan ensemble Kyai Fatahillah (Bandung) in concerts in Bandung, Yogjakarta and Jakarta. In the first concert in Bandung, a complete version of my ensemble cycle Wunderblock wason the programme.

 
Directly after my return from Indonesia, Insel Hombroich celebrated my 60th birthday with a concert called Kanreki (Robert HP Platz and Japan). On this occasion, I conducted next Sekundenstücke (pieces I & III) from Wunderblock for the first time in this combination (Ensemble MdI, Milan).
With the presence of the shô player Manabe Naoyuki, we had the rare pleasure to hear senko-hana-bi in the original version for shô and the spacialized version of the piece for flute and clarinette.
 

”Shut up and do it" is the title of a new CD issued recently by cpo with works by several composers, inspired by Arno Schmidt, and including my Boutaden on texts by Schmidt. The CD is based on a concert that took place in Bremen in 2007 and in which 3 of my Boutaden, commissioned by the Arno-Schmidt-Foundation, were premiered by Denis Lakey (counter-tenor) and Anne Horstmann (flute(s)).
 
In November 2010, I spent two weeks as a guest of UCSB in Santa Barbara, teaching, preparing a concert with my works and other events, including a dinner that was conceived following the form-scheme of my short piece Luftbratsche for viola solo, premiered during the dinner by Jacob Adams.
 
One more trip to California is scheduled for February 2011, when Nicholas Isherwood will perform the premiere of the solo version of Lilith for baritone and computer sounds at the Stanford University. He will sing the piece on a tour in Eugene (Oregon) on April 5, in Brussels on May 23, in Paris on September 24 and in Rome within the same week.
 
Musically, I started the year 2011 at IRCAM in Paris with the first step of the realisation of Branenwelten 6 for piano and live electronics, a co-commission of IRCAM with Eclat (Stuttgart) and CMMAS (Morelia, Mexico).

In October 2010 NEOS  published a box with 6 CDs: Darmstadt Aural Documents, composers conducting their own works. It contains among others live-recordings of my teachers Wolfgang Fortner and Karlheinz Stockhausen as well as one of my own pieces: from fear of thunder, dreams... (1990 recording, RHPP conducting Ensemble Köln, NEOS 11060).

On September 17 and 19, 2010 Evan Christ will conduct the Philharmonic Orchestra of Cottbus in the world premiere of the new and short orchestral piece Blau, See at the Staatstheater Cottbus.

Orchestral miniatures (Blau) of tiny musical gestures, hard-edged at first, then more and more dissolved to form a musical flux.
Fragmentary scenes, echoes of things past and announcements of the coming.
Deepening space, an english horn back-stage (See) as a distant call, announcement, promise.
Blau, See was written this year on commission of the Philharmonic Orchestra Cottbus.
 
On September 21, 2010 Wolfgang Korb has presented a radio portrait of my music in Mouvement (21:00-22:30 (MEZ) SR 2 KulturRadio, available on web radio: www.sr2.de).
 

A remark about a concert without a premiere: on September 30, 2010 (19:00), the Italian pianist Alfonso Alberti played my first piano piece trail (1981) in the Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Cologne.
Alberti, an expert of my piano-music who already played several of my pieces in the Italian Internet-TV, asked questions because of mistakes in the printed score of the piece. These questions were difficult to answer since, as you all remember, all of my manuscripts and sketches up to 2008/9 were lost in the collapse of the Historical Archives of the City of Cologne. Nothing has been found or identified so far.
But years ago, I had made a photocopy of the manuscript for the Austrian pianist Ursula Kneihs. Ursula offered to make copies of her copy, which will enable us to put the sketches and some pages of the manuscript online soon, thus making it available to everybody.
I want to ask all friends to whom I ever gave manuscripts or copies of works, to send them to me if possible as a pdf-file, to insert them on my site for open public use.

Two first performances: on May 12, 2010 I’ll be conducting the full version of Wunderblock (next for alto flute solo, Kiefer for bass clarinet and percussion, Sekundenstücke for string trio) in the Teatro dal Verme (Milan) in the Koiné-Festival (commission of Pomeriggi Musicali, Ivan Fedele). The Milan-based MdI-Ensemble will be playing, I'll be conducting.
 

The next first performance will take place on June 15, 2010 in the Cologne cathedral: Prof. Winfried Bönig will open the 50. (!) season of the famed Orgelfeierstunden with Stunden:Buch 2.

Meanwhile, the author Alban Nikolai Herbst has started a new blog with music-suggestions in the net with an enthousiastic comment on the Hosokawa-CD that appeared last fall.

 
In December 2009 my Skizzentagebuch zu TOP was published by Pfau-Verlag, the editor is Stefan Fricke. I wrote this diary in 2000 until 2007 as a comment to my works, but more and more it turned into a freely written personal diary. 
 
In January 2010 I realized a concert-project with mexican music with Ensemble Aventure. Concerts are scheduled at Elisabeth-Schneider-Stiftung Freiburg (Jan 25, 2010) and in Tonhalle Düsseldorf (Jan 27, 2010).
 
In January as well I have conducted the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg for a recording of a second Hosokawa-CD (NEOS). Among the soloists was Rohan de Saram. The first CD of the series with works of Toshio Hosokawa under my direction meanwhile was appointed best CD of the year 2009 by Res Musica.
 
Just in time I finished the score of Branenwelten 1-4, a commission of Robert-Schumann-Hochschule Düsseldorf for a seminar about new instrumental techniques, to be premiered with members of Musikfabrik.
Branenwelten is a cycle of four independent pieces that were nevertheless written to be also played simultaneosly:
Branenwelten 1   Strings
Branenwelten 2   Flute solo
Branenwelten 3   Trio d'anches (Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon)
Branenwelten 4   Brass-Trio (Trumpet, Horn, Trombone)
The first performance was played on February 4, 2010 in the Robert-Schumann-Hochschule Düsseldorf. Cordula Schnorr (flute) will be the soloist, the orchestra of the Robert-Schumann-Hochschule will play under the direction of Rüdiger Bohn. 

Composing principles in music and gourmet cooking were the subject of a talk between star cook Heinz Wehmann, the chef of Landhaus Scherrer in Hamburg, and myself on September 4 in Winsen. During the talk, I sponaneously made a suggestion for a menu and composed a short piece for flute (Luftflöte), following the same priciples; Astrid Schmeling assisted with her flute. In the concert on the same night, Ensemble L’ART POUR L’ART played Danach 1 + 2 for flute and (distant) piano and next and Kiefer from the cycle Wunderblock.
 
The duo for harp and viola from my radio-composition Anderswo was played for the first time in concert on September 16 in Schloß Jever (Niedersächsische Musiktage). The musicians are Florence Sitruk and Hartmut Rohde.
 
On September 30 and October 1, 2009 the Sinfonieorchester Aachen has played the world premiere of bulk for alto flute and orchestra. The performance also included the third of my love-songs (Nacht) as well as the first movement of my 5th piano piece Unter Segel, giving thus an impression of the major network those pieces are conceived in. Nacht Unter Segel bulk was conducted by Matthias Foremny, the soloists were Jean-Luc Menet (alto flute), Leila Pfister (alto), and Gabor Kali (piano).
 
A matinee about the collapse of the Historical Archives of the City of Cologne  took place on October 11 in the Schauspielhaus Köln. There have been no news yet about the whereabouts or state of my archives. Yet, in June, I could pay a visit to the centre, where found items are collected, and had to state that there is very little hope for any of my manuscripts.

Two of my works were  premiered in the festival Ensemblia in Mönchengladbach.
The string quartet of the Ensemble Aventure (Friedemann Treiber and Felix Treiber, vl, Jessica Rona, vla, and Beverley Ellis, vc)  played strings (Echo VII) (3rd string quartet) on May 22 at 9:00 pm in Möchengladbach’s Water Tower, Viersener Straße (next performance: May 24, Freiburg/Breisgau).
Sekundenstücke for string trio (Wunderblock III) was played by members of the orchestra Niederrheinische Symphoniker on May 24 at 4:00 pm in the Deutsche Bank Mönchengladbach (Chisato Yamamoto, vl, Richard Weitz, vla and Raffaele Franchini, vc).
 
A new CD with 3 instrumental concertos by Toshio Hosokawa was published on June 1st 2009 by the label NEOS. Robert HP Platz conducts Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, SWR-Orchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg and NDR Radiophilharmonie. The soloists are Irvine Arditti (vl), Gunhild Ott (fl) and Bernhard Wambach (pno).
 
The recently published book Kammerton der Gegenwart (edited by Harry Vogt and Frank Hilberg) celebrates 40 years of Wittener Tage für Neue Kammermusik. I have contributed a small gloss and am represented on one of the two accompanying cds with a 1982 recording of PhRYh for 8 strings and piano by Volker Heyn (Ensemble Köln, soloist: Kristi Becker).
 
On March 3rd, 2009 the historical archive of the city of Cologne collapsed, killing two people and taking with it what has since been called the 'memory of the city'. I had given my sketch-books, manuscripts and other material to the archives. In a letter, the City of Cologne states: 'Little can be said at this moment about the condition of the papers. This can only be done once everything has been recovered, sorted and categorized.'

After the world premieres of Kiefer in Cologne on August 23, 2008 (first radio transmission on December 8, 8:05pm, WDR3) and Kiefer Sekundenstücke (November, 9 in Berlin), the premiere of the last score of the new cycle Wunderblock is coming up. Harrie Starreveld (Nieuw Ensemble, Amsterdam) will play next for solo alto flute in a live broadcast concert of WDR3 in Cologne on December, 13 (the concert will also be transmitted via internet). The piece was written as an hommage to Elliott Carter and will be played together with other pieces dedicated to Carter by György Kurtag and Heinz Holliger to celebrate Carter’s 100th birthday.
 
Robert HP Platz has conducted the Parisian Ensemble Alternance on occasion of a concert to celebrate Olivier Messiaen's 100th anniversary on December 10, 2008 at Düsseldorf (Robert Schumann-Saal). The programme combined Messiaen's music with pieces by his pupils Gérard Grisey and Tristan Murail, a composition by Jonathan Harvey and one by Elliott Carter, to whom the concert was also dedicated in order to celebrate his 100th birthday – he was born just one day after Messiaen. Robert HP Platz has commented the pieces during the concert. In the second part of the concert the Gundecha-Brothers played Indian Drhupad Music.
 
The Symphonic Orchestra of the city of Aachena has given me the commission for a work for flute and orchestra entitled bulk . In the world premiere at the beginning of the season 2009/2010, Jean-Luc Menet will play the solo part, the conductor will be Marcus Bosch, the orchestra's musical director.

Another commision for a piece for chamber orchestra, Branenwelten, comes from the Robert-Schumann-Hochschule of Düsseldorf. It is to be premiered in the beginning of 2010 by students under the direction of Prof. Rüdiger Bohn as the grand finale of a work-shop hold by members of the ensemble Musikfabrik.

On August, 23 a new piece had its world premiere in Cologne: Kiefer, for bass clarinet and percussion (soloists: Carl Rosman und Thomas Meixner, Musikfabrik) is the first part of the cycle Wunderblock, consisting of three scores. The work had been intended as a tribute to Karlheinz Stockhausen’s 80. birthday. Since Stockhausen passed away last December, Kiefer turned into a musical tombeau.
Further premieres of the Wunderblock-cycle are planned for November, 9 (Berlin: Kiefer Sekundenstücke for string trio; Ensemble Mosaik) and December, 13 (Köln, WDR: next for alto flute, soloist: Harrie Starreveld), 2008, and in the festival 'Ensemblia' in may 2009 (Mönchengladbach: Sekundenstücke for string trio).
The world premiere of Platz' third string-quartet strings (Echo VII), commissioned by Ensemblia, will be premiered in the same festival period.

 
From February 12-16, 2007 my piano works were in the focus of the 15. Wiener Tage der Zeitgenössischen Klaviermusik. The week's topic were Kinderszenen? Teaching Composing and Platz’ works for the piano.
Ursula Kneihs, in charge of the courses, has published a meticulously edited documentation of the seminars and concerts on 19 DVDs. The box exists only in a few copies and is available at the Institut Ludwig van Beethoven der Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Wien (www.wienertage.at / info@wienertage.at) and at the Historisches Archiv der Stadt Köln (www.stadt-koeln.de/historischesarchiv/) (eberhard.illner@stadt-koeln.de).
 
I have already given several interviews focussing on the recently published CD with his works for the piano (Robert HP Platz: Klavierstücke (NEOS 10715), registrated by the DLF, with the pianist Rolf Hind). The CD was presented in a conversation with Jean-Pierre Derrien for France Musique on September 22, 2008 at 22pm in the frame of 'Le Bel Aujourd'hui'. A conversation with Lotte Thaler can be heard on SWR 2 on October 24 at 15.05 in the frame of 'Musik Aktuell', and a third interview was recorded with Margarethe Zander for the RBB's series 'Musik der Gegenwart' on November 12, from 21-22pm.
 
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In June 2008 I have been in Mexico for three weeks on invitation of the Conservatorio de las Rosas (German Romero), three weeks rich with new musical, social, culinary, and geographic experiences... I usually reflect such residences by keeping a diary – my Mexican weeks are thus now documented on my homepage.