1. Tilo Medek, originally Muller-Medek, was a German classical composer, musicologist and music publisher.
17 Facts About Tilo Medek
1. 2.
Tilo Medek grew up in East Germany, but was inspired by the Darmstadter Ferienkurse.
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Tilo Medek's setting of Lenin's Decree on Peace led to restrictions, and after he showed solidarity with the expatriated Wolf Biermann, he had to move to the West, where he composed an opera Katharina Blum based on Heinrich Boll's novel, and worked in education.
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Tilo Medek received musical training at the Jenaer Musikschule in violin, piano, improvisation and music theory.
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Tilo Medek received his Abitur in 1959, and studied then at the Humboldt University of Berlin, musicology with Walther Vetter, Ernst Hermann Meyer and Georg Knepler.
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Tilo Medek took courses in psychology with Kurt Gottschaldt, in art history with Karl-Heinz Clasen, in theology with Lieselotte Richter and in garden architecture with Willy Kurth.
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Tilo Medek studied at the same time composition with Rudolf Wagner-Regeny at the Deutsche Hochschule fur Musik in East Berlin.
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From 1962, Tilo Medek worked as a repetiteur for the ensemble of the Berliner Arbeiterjugend, and as a composer of radio plays and incidental music.
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In 1977, Tilo Medek criticized the Darmstadt School and its influence in the GDR.
10.
When Wolf Biermann had to leave the country on 15 July 1977, Tilo Medek protested and then moved to the West.
11.
In 1984 he composed the opera Katharina Blum to a libretto by his wife, Dorothea Tilo Medek, based on Heinrich Boll's novel Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum.
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Tilo Medek's works included chamber music and piano pieces, and settings of poetry by Bertolt Brecht which were performed by singers such as Sonja Kehler.
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Tilo Medek composed many works for choir and orchestra, receiving international recognition for Die Todesfuge after Paul Celan's poem "Todesfuge".
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Tilo Medek composed two radio plays broadcast by Radio DDR 1.
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Tilo Medek wrote extended stage works, such as the opera Katharina Blum.
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Tilo Medek composed three symphonies: Die Eisenblatter, Die Rheinische, Die Sorbische, and several concertos for solo instrument and orchestra.
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Tilo Medek received awards for his Die betrunkene Sonne for speaker and orchestra, a melodrama for children on a text by Sarah Kirsch, and for Kindermesse, written in memory of the children murdered by the Nazis.