26 Facts About Olga Neuwirth

Olga Neuwirth is famed especially for her operas and music theater works, many of which have treated sociopolitical themes.

Olga Neuwirth has emphasized an open-ended, interdisciplinary approach in her work, collaborating frequently with Elfriede Jelinek, exploiting live electronics, and incorporating video.

Olga Neuwirth has written music for historic and contemporary films.

Olga Neuwirth is the niece of Gosta Neuwirth and the sister of sculptor Flora Neuwirth.

Olga Neuwirth studied painting and film at the San Francisco Art College.

Olga Neuwirth continued her studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna under Erich Urbanner while studying at the Institute for Composition and Electroacoustics.

Olga Neuwirth received significant inspiration in this period from Adriana Holszky and Luigi Nono, who had similarly radical politics, and who she said was a strong influence in her life.

Olga Neuwirth has served as a professor at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna since 2021.

Olga Neuwirth is a member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts, the Academy of Arts and the Royal Swedish Academy of Music.

Olga Neuwirth has long reflected on the everyday life of professional composers, especially women composers, who are marginalized within contemporary art circles.

Olga Neuwirth has conveyed her thoughts on this issue in a number of texts.

Olga Neuwirth frequently expresses herself on political issues more broadly, calling for vigilance in the face of social and political changes.

Olga Neuwirth has created several full-length music theatre works, including the video opera Lost Highway, based on David Lynch's film; Bahlamms Fest, drawing on the work of Leonora Carrington; The Outcast, referencing Herman Melville; and American Lulu, her free adaptation of Alban Berg's Lulu.

Olga Neuwirth has numerous chamber music works released on the Kairos label.

Olga Neuwirth has drawn from a range of sources for inspiration, including "art, architecture, literature and music, intellectual history, psychology, natural science, and everyday reality".

Olga Neuwirth's aim has been to create works that are both distinctive and multidimensional.

For example, in Le Encantadas o le avventure nel mare delle meraviglie, Olga Neuwirth has been described as creating a "fictional adventure novel through multiple spatial sound effects", drawing on Herman Melville's novella The Encantadas and Luigi Nono's sound world, especially that of his 1984 Prometeo.

Olga Neuwirth has expressed interest in a broad spectrum of stimuli and possibilities of expression.

Olga Neuwirth often set herself the goal of breaking up established forms of concert presentation in order to arrive at a "fluid form".

Olga Neuwirth's works have expanded from the concert hall into public spaces, for example in Talking Houses, a sound installation for shops along the main square of Deutschlandsberg, Austria, and in the sound installation.

Olga Neuwirth worked with video artist Tal Rosner to create the interactive installation Disenchanted Island at Centre Pompidou in Paris.

Olga Neuwirth is interested in the relationship between music and visual art and has continually expanded the scope of her activities by writing texts and film scripts, producing short films, and organizing performances and photo series.

Olga Neuwirth recently collaborated with French installation, video, and conceptual artist Dominique Gonzales-Foerster on the multimedia installation.

Olga Neuwirth has received commissions from international institutions including Carnegie Hall, the Lucerne Festival, the Salzburg Festival, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Vienna State Opera and many others.

Olga Neuwirth was composer in residence at the Salzburg Festival in 1999, the Koninklijk Filharmonisch Orkest van Vlaanderen in Antwerp in 2000, the Lucerne Festival in both 2002 and 2016, the Festival d'Automne in 2011, and the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg and the Wiener Konzerthaus in 2019.

Olga Neuwirth's works have been performed by the conductors Pierre Boulez, Peter Eotvos, Daniel Harding, Matthias Pintscher, Valerij Gergjev, Susanna Malkki, Francois-Xavier Roth and Alan Gilbert, among others.