Friedrich Schenker
Friedrich Schenker (23 December 19428 February 2013) was a German avant-garde composer and trombone player. Life. Born in the German town of Zeulenroda, Schenker learned trombone and piano as a child and made his first compositional attempts at the age of 10. At the Hochschule für Musik "Hanns Eisler" in Berlin he studied trombone from 1961 to 1964 with Helmut Stachowiak and music composition with Eisler's student Günter Kochan. During his studies he taught himself the technique of dodecaphony and played in a jazz band. After the instrumental Staatsexamen in 1964 he was employed as principal  trombonist in the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Leipzig until 1982. He continued his composition studies in evening classes at the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig until in 1968 with Fritz Geißler. In 1970 he founded the Gruppe Neue Musik Hanns Eisler with the oboisten Burkhard Glaetzner and six other musicians from the "Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester" and the Gewandhaus orchester in Leipzig. This special ensemble, which also included Schenker's brother, the percussionist Gerd Schenker, became the most important interpreter of contemporary chamber music of the avant-garde of the German Democratic Republic. Together with he also moved in the field of Free  improvisation. As a master student of Paul Dessau at the Academy of Arts, Berlin from 1973 to 1975, Schenker received important impulses for his artistic motivation and aesthetics. His membership in the Berlin Academy of Arts from 1986 onwards was followed ten years later by admission to the Sächsische Akademie der Künste as well as the . Until 1989 he was a member of the board of the . Since 1982 Schenker has been a freelance musician and composer as well as consultant for new music at the Leipzig Gewandhaus (until 1989) and received lectureships for music composition and improvisation at the  Hochschule für Musik und Theater Leipzig. From 2000 to 2002 he was theatre composer at the Staatstheater Kassel. Schenker died in Berlin on 8 February 2013 at the age of 70 after a serious illness. He is buried at the Dorotheenstadt Cemetery. Compositions. His compositions: