Olga Neuwirth

Composer and feminist

„History is so rich, everything has already been written, so I shouldn’t write any more notes for this reason. But when you’re composing, you must have megalomaniacal fits.“

Olga Neuwirth was born in Graz in 1968 and grew up in Schwanberg, Styria. In 1986, she moved to San Francisco to study painting and film at the Conservatory of Music and Art College. After returning to Austria, she continued her studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna and at the Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics. She first attracted international attention in 1991 at the Vienna Festival with the performance of two mini operas based on texts by Elfriede Jelinek. In 1998, she was introduced to audiences at the Salzburg Festival as part of the series Next Generation, and in 1999, her first full-length musical theatre work, Bählamms Fest (The Feast of the Lamb), premiered at the Vienna Festival.

Ms. Neuwirth’s compositions reflect her diverse interests, including science, architecture, literature, film and visual arts, and also move between the arts themselves. The ensemble is often accompanied by electroacoustic set pieces and video recordings, which together create a cross-genre acoustic and visual experience. However, she not only composes for concerts or opera, but also arranges sound installations, music for exhibitions and theatre, as well as film scores. Her affinity for the visual arts became apparent at the latest with her invitation to documenta 12 in 2007. One of the highlights of Neuwirth’s career was the performance of Orlando at the Vienna State Opera in December 2019, which is also the first full-length opera composed by a woman to be commissioned by the Vienna State Opera to date.

The composer has received numerous awards for her work, including the Hindemith Prize, the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize in 1999, and the Ernst Krenek Prize of the City of Vienna in 2000. In 2006, she was admitted to the Berlin Academy of Arts, in 2020, also to the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. In 2010, she was awarded the Grand Austrian State Prize, making her not only the first woman to receive this award in the field of music, but also the youngest recipient ever. In 2019, she was awarded the Austrian Decoration of Honor for Science and Art. In 2021, Neuwirth was awarded the prestigious Wolf Prize in Music for her “exceptional mastery, artistic talent, and media skills.”