Born on August 4, 1968, in Graz. Studied at the Conservatory of Music in San Francisco and painting and film at art college. Studied at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna from 1987 to 1993. She received significant inspiration from her encounters with Adriana Hölszky, Tristan Murail, and Luigi Nono. At the age of 22, she gained international recognition with two mini-operas based on texts by Elfriede Jelinek at the 1991 Vienna Festival.
Olga Neuwirth's artistic self-image has always drawn on multiple aesthetic experiences from film, literature, visual arts, natural sciences, and everyday culture. She is one of the outstanding voices of New Music and one of the most internationally renowned composers.
In 1998, she was featured in two portrait concerts as part of the “Next Generation” series at the Salzburg Festival. The following year, her first full-length musical theater work, Bählamms Fest (1994), with a libretto by Nobel Prize winner Elfriede Jelinek, an “immersive experience with electronic surround sound,” premiered at the Vienna Festival. Other breakthrough works by Neuwirth include the video opera Lost Highway (2003), based on David Lynch's film of the same name, Kloing! (2008) with scientific earthquake data for a computer-controlled Bösendorfer grand piano and live pianist, as well as “Le Encantadas o le avventure nel mare delle meraviglie” (2015) based on acoustic data from the Chiesa San Lorenzo in Venice, and the musical theater piece “Orlando” (2019) based on Virginia Woolf at the Vienna State Opera, the first woman to do so in the 150-year history of the institution.
She has been a member of the Berlin Academy of Arts since 2006 and a member of the Munich Academy of Arts since 2013. She is a guest at festivals and concert halls such as Cité de la musique, Festival d'Automne Paris, Holland Festival, the Salzburg Festival, Wien Modern, Carnegie Hall NYC, and Royal Albert Hall London. In 2002 and 2016, she was composer in residence at the Lucerne Festival, and in 2019 she was the featured composer at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg and the Berliner Festspiele. In addition to her work as a composer, Olga Neuwirth is also active as a film and performance artist, including a collaboration with architect Peter Zumthor and the New York architecture firm Asymptote in 2017.
Neuwirth's diverse interests have also given rise to various sound installations, exhibitions, theater and film scores, which culminated in her invitation to documenta 12 in Kassel.
Awards (Selection)
2020 Robert Schumann Prize for Poetry and Music
2019 Austrian Decoration of Honour for Science and Art
2017 German Music Authors' Prize
2010 Grand Austrian State Prize
2010 Louis Spohr Music Award
2009 South Bank Show Award
2008 Heidelberger Künstlerinnenpreis (City of Heidelberg Music Prize for female composers)
2000 Ernst-Krenek-Prize
1999 Hindemith-Prize
1999 Ernst von Siemens Music Prize
Works (Selection)
2020 Keyframes for a Hippogriffin, musical calligrams in memoriam Hester Diamond (2019) for orchestra, countertenor and boys´ choir (Premiere New York Philharmonics)
2019 Orlando, opera based on Virginia Woolf's “Orlando: A Biography”, (Premiere Vienna State Opera)
2015 Trurliade - Zone Zero for percussion and orchestra (Premiere Lucerne Festival, 2016)
2013 Masaot/Clocks Without Hands for orchestra (Premiere Kölner Philharmonie, 2015)
2014/2015 Eleanor, suite for female blues singer, drum-kit-player and ensemble (Premiere, Salzburg Festival, 2015)
2014/2015 Encantadas o le avventure nel mare delle meraviglie for 6 ensembles distributed around the room and (live) electronics (Premiere Donaueschingen, 2015)
2011 Kloing! and A songplay in 9 fits. Hommage à Klaus Nomi, (Premiere Opera Garnier)
2008-2010 The Outcast – Hommage à Hermann Melville (Premiere Mannheim National Theatre, 2012)
2006-2011 American Lulu, a free adaptation of Berg's Lulu (Premiere Komischen Oper Berlin, 2012)
2008 “Das Vaterspiel”, film music (complete) for ensemble (film directed by Michael Glawogger)
2007 Kloing! for live piano player, computer controled piano and live film (Premiere Kunstfest Weimar, 2008)
2007 “...miramondo multiplo…” sound installation, motion-capture-camera and film (Texts: Hannah Arendt, Walter Benjamin) documenta 12, Kassel, 2007
2006 “...miramondo multiplo…”, for trumpe and orchestra (Premiere Salzburg Festival)
2006 Diagonal Symphonie, music for the silent movie by von Viking Eggeling (Uraufführung Viennale, 2008)
2005 “…le temps désechanté... ou dialogue aux enfer ” sound installation, film projection and motion-capture-camera
2002/2003 Lost Highway, opera based on David Lynch's 1997 film (Premiere, Steirischer Herbst [Styrian Autumn Festival], 2003)
1999 Clinamen/Nodus for orchestra (dedicated to Pierre Boulez and the London Symphony Orchester, Premiere in London, 2000)
1992/93-1997/98 Bählamms Fest, music theatre in 13 pictures, libretto: Elfriede Jelinek (Premiere Wiener Festwochen [Vienna Festival]), 1999)
Some of her works are available on the labels Kairos and col legno.