top of page

2020 χώρος (CHORÓS) 

for 24 voices + dancer

text + signpoetic choreography + composition: Helmut Oehring

duration: 45'

LOWmusicMOL  

world premiere September 2020 HELLERAU – European Center for the Arts, Dresden

Choreography + dance: Katja Erfurth

2015/16 Massacre. Listen, MASSACRE! (to Racep Tayyip Erdogan)

melodrama

for guitar/voice + 12phonic womens' choir + string orchestra

on a poem by Armenian poet Rupen Sevag,

verses of the Ya Sin Sure and a poem by Helmut Oehring

libretto: Stefanie Woerdemann

audioconception + -production: Torsten Ottersberg/GOGH s.m.p.

commissioned by Dresden Symphonics on 100. anniversary

of the genocide againts the Armenians

duration: 35’ 

LOWmusicMOL

wp 2015 RADIALSYSTEM V Berlin

performances in Dresden + Budapest + Yerewan 

Marc Sinan + AuditiVokal + Dresden Smphonics

musical direction: Andrea Molino

"An anger, an implacability and fullness that Oehring's music unleashes without sacrificing tenderness and lamentation, in order to, at the height of our days, which promise anything but good, in fact open new fields of energy - and we will do so in the future." sorely need it!”
Olaf Brühl, www.kultur-extra.de

"Oehring's tremendously powerful melodrama MASSACRE! is more of a beacon than a complaint and is addressed to President Erdoğan. Marc Sinan as speaker and on the electric guitar, soloists, a women's choir and interspersed quotations leave nothing to be desired in terms of clarity."

Michael Bartsch, taz

2016 Angelus Novus III

for ensemble and orchestra

based on pictures by Paul Klee and texts by Walter Benjamin

text book: Stefanie Wördemann

duration: 25'   

LOWmusicMOL

world premiere 2016 Theater Freiburg

Ensemble Aventure + Freiburg Philharmonic Orchestra

musical direction: Daniel Carter

2015/16 Vocalise of an inconsolable Angel  

for solo soprano + solo electric guitar + orchestra  

duration: 10'      

LOWmusicMOL  

world premiere 2016 Tonhalle Duesseldorf

Marisol Montalvo + Daniel Göritz + Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra

musical direction: Kerri-Lynn Wilson

2013 Words in the Air (Saf Haki)  

for vocal soloist + sign language soloist + solo e-guitarist + choir + orchestra

commissioned by the Donaueschinger Musiktage 2013

duration: 30'  

LOWmusicMOL  

world premiere 2013 Donaueschingen Music Days

SWR Symphony Orchestra + SWR Vocal Ensemble Stuttgart + David Moss + Christina Schönfeld

+ Najat Suleiman + Hassan Tahar + Daniel Goeritz

musical direction: Rupert Huber

2013 The disadvantage of being born

for mixed choir (6/6/6/6) on texts by Emil Cioran
duration: 15'

LOWmusicMOL

world premiere 2013 SWR

Vocal Ensemble Stuttgart

2012 not YOU?  

rhapsody for soloists + orchestra + students' ensemble + youth choir  

commissioned by the Konzerthaus Berlin  

duration: 25'   

LOWmusicMOL 

world premiere  2012 Konzerthaus am Gendarmenmarkt Berlin

David Moss + Konzerthaus Orchestra Berlin + Berlin students

musical direction: Titus Engel

2011 The Four Seasons ("Our summer is but a winter painted green")  

for solo violin + string orchestra

freely adapted from Antonio Vivaldi and Heinrich Heine 

duration: 30' 

LOWmusicMOL   

world premiere 2011 Liederhalle Stuttgart

Patricia Kopatchinskaja + Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra

musical direction: Konstantin Lifschiz

2011 POEndulum

monodrama for narrator + violoncello solo + orchestra

based on Edgar Allen Poe's novel The Pit and The Pendulum

libretto: Stefanie Wördemann

duration: 25'

LOWmusicMOL   

world premiere  2011 Old Fruit Market Glasgow

David Moss + BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

musical direction: Ilan Volkov

2010 MEERE

for solo bass clarinet + orchestra on the song Die Meere by Johannes Brahms

duration: 25'

LOWmusicMOL   

world premiere  2010 Opera Oslo / Ultima Festival Oslo

Rolf Borch + Norwegian Radio Orchestra

 

2010 mucity. Faces of a City

orchestral suite

commissioned by KlangZeit Munster 2010

duration: 15'   

Boosey & Hawkes  

world premiere 2010 Theater Munster

Munster Symphony Orchestra

musical direction: Fabrizio Ventura

2009 LOVE. HOME. DEATH?

cantorium for solo concert+electric guitar + children's choir + mixed choir + orchestra

+ visuals + live electronics

conception + text book: Stefanie Wördemann

audio conception + production: Torsten Ottersberg/GOGH smp

Commissioned by the Academy of Arts in Berlin

duration: 65'   

Boosey & Hawkes  

world premiere 2009 Frankfurt/Oder

Brandenburg State Orchestra Frankfurt + students from Frankfurt/Oder

musical direction: Howard Griffith

"Oehrings Vocalise is a score of shimmering sounds, times of massive impact. Marisol Montalvo lent to the serious work her golden, warm radiant voice. A distorted and feedback electric guitar offered a strong counterpoint to this angelic song."

Norbert Laufer, Rheinische Post 

Hagen Klennert, Graphics for Helmut Oehring's GOYA II . Yo lo vi based on Desastres de la Guerra by Francisco GoyaInk on paper 2008

2008 GOYA II. Yo lo vi

memoratorio for vocalist/double bassist + boy's soprano + e-guitar + Spanish guitar

+ sign language soloist + mixed choir + big orchestra + live-elektronics

on paintings by Francisco de Goya and texts by Hermann Kesten and Fédérico Garçia Lorca

under use of music by Manuel de Falla, Hans Werner Henze e.a.

conception + libretto: Stefanie Woerdemann

audioconception + -produktion: Torsten Ottersberg/GOGH s.m.p.

commissioned by German Symphonic Orchestra

duration: ca. 45’    

Boosey&Hawkes 

wp 2008 Berlin Philharmonic

German Symphonic Orchestra + Broadcast Choir Berlin + Matthias Bauer + Joerg Wilkendorf + Daniel Goeritz

musical director: Ingo Metzmacher

"Helmut Oehring, together with librettist Stefanie Woerdemann, impressively transposes Goya's kireg images into the language of music and with it into the present. The memoratorium, which was created in the context of Federico Garçía Lorca and Hermann Kesten, creates a unique space of thought and memory that develops out of the network of relationships between word, sound and movement."
Heike Catherina Mertens, laudatory speech on the awarding of the Arold Schoenberg Prize 2008 to Helmut Oehring

 

"Helmut Oehring's large-scale work GOYA II. Yo lo vi intensifies disturbance many times over, without the work lacking in beauty of sound, in wonderful tenderness. Oehring can do a tremendous amount, he can deal with music history both seriously and playfully, he knows how to master large devices in the same way that Mahler or Strauss or Schoenberg could. And above all, he is related to all these masters in terms of ideals and technique. For Helmut Oehring, the figure of Goya is both an image and a role model. Goya: the first war correspondent in art. The fear that screams from his etchings is the minefield that Oehring composes. Whatever the composition draws in, the terrain is explosive. Hell's journey on mined terrain. GOYA II is a composition of ruptures, distortions and explosions. Something is constantly blowing up, and a tremendous amount of humanity remains."
Stefan Amzoll, Märkische Oderzeitung

 

GOYA II is an elaborate, illustratively eloquent oratorio. The passages of the orchestral and choral machinery rolling in with noisy force are convincing, as are the chamber music episodes: The quiet despair of the concert guitar, the boy's futile cries, the slow motion of rigor mortis, the silent signs of the gesture soloist into the air - an electrifying work."
Christiane Peitz, Der Tagesspiegel

01.tif

2007 GOYA I

for orchstra on Les Desastres de la Guerra by Francisco de Goya

and under use of music by Ludwig van Beethoven

duration: ca. 20’    

Boosey&Hawkes 

wp 2007 Donauesching music days

SWR Smphonic Orchestra

musical director: Rupert Huber 

02.tif

2003 The BlueSea (from: RetreatDay)

for male soprano + e-guitar + trumpet + big orchestra + live-electronics

on Franz Schubert's The Wanderer

audioconception + -produktion: Torsten Ottersberg/GOGH s.m.p.

duration: ca. 30’    

Boosey&Hawkes

wp 2003 musica viva / Herkules Hall München

Arno Raunig + Joerg Wilkendorf + Bill Forman + Bavarian Broadcasting Orchestra

musical director: Martin Brabbins 

2001 Berlin Symphony o

for orchstra for the FilmRemake by Thomas Schadt

on Walter Ruttman's silent movie of 1929

Co-composition: Iris ter Schiphorst

audioconception + -produktion: Torsten Ottersberg/GOGH s.m.p.

duration: ca. 75’    

Boosey&Hawkes 

wp 2001 States Opera Berlin

Staatskapelle Berlin

2000 LostWater (from: The Space / Musical Sacrifice)

for voice +o electric guitar + double bass + 9 sign language soloists + large orchestra  

on texts by Helmut Oehring

audioconception + -production: Torsten Ottersberg/GOGH smp

duration: 25'   

Boosey & Hawkes  

world premiere 2001 Liederhalle Stuttgart

Orchestra of the Stuttgart State Opera + Christina Schönfeld and others

musical direction: Lothar Zagrosek

 

1999 CRUISEN - STUDY OF PORTRAIT I

for orchestra + live electronics

audio conception+ production: Torsten Ottersberg/GOGH smp

graphics: Hagen Klennert

duration: 20'   

Boosey & Hawkes  

world premiere 2000 Lille

Blindman Saxophone Quartet + Orchester National de Lille  

musical direction: F. Karaoui

1991 COMA I

for orchestra

duration: 10'   

Boosey & Hawkes  

world premiere 1992 Leipzig Gewandhaus + Cologne Philharmonic

Radio Symphony Orchestra Cologne

musical direction: Hans Vonk

bottom of page