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VITA

Caspar René Hirschfeld is one of the most interesting German composers of his generation. His music eludes common categories such as avant-garde or tradition, is considered to be equally contemporary and transcendent, structurally complex and sensually comprehensible. 

Since the successful world premiere of his chamber opera Bianca at the Salzburg Festival in 1991, his works have been performed regularly in Europe, Asia, Latin America and the USA. Also in 1991, the composer himself conducted the world premiere of his piano concerto at the Dresden Music Festival, after having made his debut as a conductor in 1985 in a recital with musicians of the Staatskapelle Dresden. 

In 2005, his double concerto for violin, violoncello and orchestra Wandlungen V was premiered at the official ceremony for awarding the Kaiser Otto Medal to former Federal President Dr. Richard von Weizsäcker in Magdeburg Cathedral. 

In 2009 Hirschfeld played the German premiere of his violin concerto as a soloist; the world premiere took place in 2008 at the Daegu International Contemporary Music Festival (South Korea). 

In 2021/22 he was composer in residence at the Gesellschaftshaus - House of Music of the state capital of Magdeburg. 

Hirschfeld's compositions have received national and international prizes, e.g. in 1984 at the international Carl-Maria von Weber competition at the Dresden Music Festival, the Eisler Prize in 1986, the Mendelssohn grant in 1988/89, the Göttingen composition prize for guitar in 2000), grant of the German Musikfonds 2022.

His oeuvre includes musical theatre, ballet, symphonic works, choral and vocal music, chamber music, solo works, electronic music as well as tangos, jazz cycles and chansons and has been published by Verlag Neue Musik Berlin, Hofmeister Verlag Leipzig and becoco verlag. 

In 2022 he signed a general contract with the publishing house Verlag Neue Musik Berlin. 

C. René Hirschfeld was born in Wernigerode in 1965 and received his first violin lessons from 1970, at the age of 9 he began to compose. 

From 1982 to 1987 he studied composition (with Udo Zimmermann) and violin at the Academy of Music “Carl-Maria von Weber” in Dresden, as well as piano and conducting as minor subjects; from 1987-89 he continued his studies as a „Master‘s Pupil“ with Udo Zimmermann. Other important mentors during this period were Wilfried Krätzschmar, Paul-Heinz Dittrich, the dancer and choreographer Thomas Hartmann and the musicologist Peter Zacher. At the same time he studied dance and dance theory as an autodidact and was also active as a dancer and performer until 1995. 

Already during his late studies, Hirschfeld was a lecturer at the Dresden Music Academy (until 1991), then until 1994 at the Academy of Music „Hanns Eisler“ in Berlin. 

In 1994 he moved to Sweden for a year, from 1995 he lived as a freelance composer in Berlin until he moved to his hometown of Wernigerode in 2018. 

Hirschfeld is a lecturer in the Saxony-Anhalt composers class and artistic director of the Ensemble Junge Musik Sachsen-Anhalt. 

He is also the author of the 2-volume, didactically innovative violin method "Meine Geigenwunderwelt" (Heinrichshofen Verlag). 

In 2017 he published his book "Movement as a Structural Design Tool for Music and other Arts".