Heinz Holliger marks a rare anniversary this summer: It was 50 years ago that he made his debut at LUCERNE FESTIVAL, known then as the International Music Festival. Born in 1939 in Langenthal in Canton Bern, he studied in Bern, Paris, and Basel, concentrating on oboe (with Émile Cassagnaud and Pierre Pierlot), piano (with Sava Savoff and Yvonne Lefébure), and composition (with Sándor Veress and Pierre Boulez). His international career as an oboist, which has brought him to the great music centers on all five continents, began in 1959 when he took First Prize in the Geneva International Music Competition; in 1961 he won the ARD Music Competition in Munich. Holliger has expanded the technical capacities of his instrument and continues to be strongly committed to contemporary music as well as to lesser-known works. Numerous composers have dedicated new scores to him, including Henze, Ligeti, and Lutosławski. In 1977 Holliger launched his career as a conductor and soon began conducting leading orchestras around the world, including the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and the Philharmonia Orchestra. He has enjoyed a long-lasting collaboration with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Holliger’s own creative work was featured when he was composer-in-residence with the International Music Festival in Lucerne in 1998, and his opera Schneewittchen was premiered in Zurich in 2002. Holliger’s works have won numerous awards, including the Composition Prize of the Swiss Union of Composers (1985), the Sonning Music Prize in Copenhagen (1987), the Frankfurt Music Prize (1988), the Siemens Music Prize (1991), the Premio Abbiati at the Venice Bi-ennale (1995), the Zurich Festival Prize (2007), and the Rheingau Music Award (2008).
LUCERNE FESTIVAL (IMF) debut on 31 August 1961 as oboe soloist in the Passacaglia concertante by Sándor Veress, with Rudolf Baumgartner conducting the Lucerne Festival Strings.
August 2011