Peter Ablinger was born in Schwanenstadt, Austria in 1959. He first studied graphic arts and became enthused by free jazz. He completed his studies in composition with Gösta Neuwirth and Roman Haubenstock-Ramati in Graz and Vienna. Since 1982 he has lived in Berlin, where he has initiated and conducted numerous festivals and concerts. In 1988 he founded the Ensemble Zwischentöne. In 1993 he was a visiting professor at the University of Music, Graz. He has been guest conductor of 'Klangforum Wien', 'United Berlin' and the 'Insel Musik Ensemble'. Since 1990 Peter Ablinger has worked as a freelance musician. From 2012-2017 he was Research Professor at the University of Huddersfield. In 2019 he was Guest Professor at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague and Leiden University. Since 2000 he has been engaged in various forms of non-institutional teaching and work with private students.
Festivals at which Peter Ablinger's compositions have been performed include the Berlin and Vienna Festwochen, Darmstadt, Donaueschingen, and festivals in Istanbul, Los Angeles, Oslo, Buenos Aires, Hong Kong, London, New York.
The Offenes Kulturhaus Linz, the Diözesanmuseum Köln, Kunsthalle Wien, Neue Galerie der Stadt Graz, the Kunsthaus Graz, the Akademie der Künste Berlin, the Haus am Waldsee Berlin, the Santa Monica Museum of the Arts have showed his installation work over the last few years.
Peter Ablinger is one of the few artists today who uses noise without any kind of symbolism - not as a.signifier for chaos, energy, entropy, disorder, or.uproar; not for opposing something, or being.disobedient or destructive; not for everything, for.eternity, or for what-have-you. As in all these cases.of music deliberately involving noise, noise is the.case, but for Ablinger: this alone. Peter Ablinger has.also come a long way in questioning the nature of.sound, time, and space (the components usually thought.central to music), and his findings have jeopardized.and made dubious conventions usually thought.irrefutable. These insights pertain to repetition and.monotony, reduction and redundancy, density and entropy. (Christian Scheib)
"Sounds are not sounds! They are here to distract the intellect and to soothe the senses. Not once is hearing 'hearing': hearing is that which creates me." The composer Peter Ablinger (born in Schwanenstadt, Austria in 1959) is, as Christian Scheib once put it, a "mystic of enlightenment" whose "calls and litanies are aimed at cognition." At the same time, the composer, who - after studying graphic arts - studied with Gösta Neuwirth and Roman Haubenstock-Ramati, and since 1982 lives in Berlin, is also a skeptic who understands the cultural rules and (destructive) habits enforced by tradition: "So let us play further and say: sounds are here to hear (-but not to be heard. That's something else). And that hearing is here to be ceased ('Das Hören ist da um aufzuhören'). More I can't say." (Text: Christian Baier, translated by Bill Dietz)
Concerts (selection):
Wiener Festwochen, Berliner Festwochen, Wien Modern, Darmstädter Ferienkurse, Musikprotokoll des Steirischen Herbstes, Bienale Berlin, Trienale Köln, Prager Frühling, Hörgänge Wien, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Internationales Musikfestival Istanbul, Klangaktionen München, Los Angeles Resistance Fluctuation, Musica Nova Sofia, Festival of Vision Hong Kong, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Teatro Colón Buenos Aires, Happy Days Oslo, SuperDeluxe Tokyo, Kunstraum Düsseldorf, Cut&Splice London, Música Contemporánea Santiago de Chile, Maerzmusik Berlin, Holland Festival Amsterdam, La Biennale di Venezia, Carnegie Hall New York, AMUZ Antwerp, SPOR Festival Denmark, Musica Nova Helsinki, Contempuls Festival Prague, Philharmonie Luxembourg, Teatro Argentino La Plata, Museo Universitario Arte Contemporaneo Mexico City, Mostra Sonora Sueca, Time of Music Viitasaari, Bienal Música Hoje Curritiba Brasil, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Philharmonie Köln, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Fundació Tàpies Barcelona, Tectonics Reykjavik, Centro Nacional de las Artes Mexico Ciudad, DePaul Concert Orchestra Chicago, Zipper Hall Los Angeles, Warsaw Autumn, Sokołowsko, Oscillations Brussels, Ring Festival Belgrade, Biennale Warszawa, Symphony Space New York, Sofia Music Weeks, Seoul Art Center, Musée des Beaux-Arts Dijon, Klangspuren Schwaz, Musikfest Bern, Frac Franche Comté Besançon, Moscow Forum, Warsaw Autumn, Skaņu Mežs Riga
Installations (selection):
Offenes Kulturhaus Linz, Neue Galerie der Stadt Graz, Stadttheater Gießen, Neue Musik Rümlingen, Stadtgalerie Kiel, Moltkereiwerkstatt Köln, Podewil Berlin, Maerzgalerie Linz, Diözesanmuseum Köln, Rote Fabrik Zürich, Santa Monica Museum of the Arts, Kunsthalle Karlsplatz Wien, Akademie der Künste Berlin, Kunsthaus Graz, Ostseebienale der Klangkunst, Wiener Festwochen, Medienkunstlabor Graz, Musikkinformasjonssenteret Oslo, Kunsthalle Rostock, MAK Wien, Märkisches Museum der Stadt Witten, Haus am Waldsee Berlin, Tina B Praha, WUK Kunsthalle Exnergasse Wien, Matadero Madrid, Tonspur Berlin, Galery Spanien Aarhus, MuHKA Antwerp, Skulpturenmuseum Marl, SoundART Köln, Ars Electronica Linz, Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Królikarnia Warszawa, ZKM Karlsruhe, Kunsthaus Dresden, Deutsches Museum München, Shalman Art Gallery Tehran, Malta Festival Poznan, KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen, Haniqah Sarajevo, Shanghai Biennale, Architekturmuseum Basel, Waldkunstpfad Darmstadt, Médiathèque d'Albi, Transart Bozen, NeoArte Gdansk, Festspielhaus Hellerau Dresden, Floating University Berlin, Brückenmusik Köln, Bienal de la Habana, Zeiträume Basel, Open Art München, Gray Center for Art and Inquiry Chicago, Neue Galerie Graz
Combined pieces, music theater, opera:
Offenes Kulturhaus Linz, Konzerthaus Wien, Santa Monica Museum of the Arts, ORF-Sendessaal und Kunsthalle Karlsplatz Wien, Donaueschinger Musiktage, "OPERA/WORKS, Stadtoper Graz in sieben Akten" Steirischer Herbst 2005, Estudio Abierto Buenos Aires, Turning Point Warszawa, OPERA/WORKS, Landschaftsoper Ulrichsberg 2009, City Opera Buenos Aires 2011, Ostrava Days, ReSounding Dublin, Philharmonie Köln, Konzerthaus Wien, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Borealis Festival Bergen, David H. Koch Theater NYC
Permanent Pieces:
Weiss/Weisslich 27d ("for Winfried Ritsch"), IEM Graz, Österreich
Arboretum Ulrichsberg, Austria
Reeds, Haus am Waldsee, Berlin (destroyed 2021)
Deus Cantando (God, singing), Ars Electronica Center, Linz, Österreich
TV without Antenna (Weiss/Weisslich 7), Werkraum Berlin
My material is not sound.
My material is not sound.
My material is audibility.
Like others who work with sound
set a sound then a pause
I set audibility then inaudibility.
Inaudibility can arise in different ways.
By quietness but also by loudness.
By too low tones and by too high tones.
By slowness but also by speed.
By too little happening but also by too much happening.
By too much closeness and by too much distance.
By too short durations and by too long durations.
By emptiness and by fullness.
It has to be added that the relation of audibility and inaudibility -in contrast to sound/pause- is in a way a transcending one. First, audibility and inaudibility are not even absolutely separated from each other in the idea but are linked by a "critical band". That is, there is a critical zone within which, somewhat differently for each, the transition from audibility to inaudibility happens. Secondly and more important, the relationship between audibility and inaudibility is not a polar, mutually exclusive one, but the change from audibility to inaudibility signifies a transition to ANOTHER state.
For example, exceeding a certain loudness becomes pain, exceeding a certain frequency becomes ultrasound, falling below a certain duration of a sound becomes a crack, exceeding a certain amount of information becomes chaos etc.
P.A.6/97
Aaron Cassidy on Peter Ablinger in:
The Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism
For original manuscripts, sketches and early works visit:
Peter-Ablinger-Archive
Informations about "Ensemble Zwischentöne" see here:
Ensemble Zwischentöne
