Matthias Ockert · composition

BIOGRAPHY

Matthias Ockert began his musical career with clarinet and flute at the Knabenmusik Meersburg and then took jazz guitar lessons with Günter Weiss and Lothar Schmitz in Konstanz and Stuttgart. Initially, he trained as an architect at the Technical University of Berlin while taking composition and music theory lessons with Carlo Inderhees. He studied composition with Wolfgang Rihm, Sandeep Bhagwati and Hanspeter Kyburz in Karlsruhe and Berlin and jazz guitar with Attila Zoller, Bill Connors and Steve Khan during regular stays in New York.
Matthias Ockert's work includes instrumental and electronic music, jazz, multimedia, sound installations and stage works such as his opera "The Library of Babel" after Jorge Luis Borges for the Munich Biennale or "Xanthopsia" for the ballet of the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe. His work is characterized by the use of electric guitar, interactive electronics, integration of improvisation and a special focus on the compositional design of the sound space.
His music has been performed at international festivals and contemporary music venues, including the Lucerne Festival, Warsaw Autumn, International Computer Music Congress New Orleans, Munich Biennale for New Music Theater, Festival Synthèse Bourges, Fundaçao Calouste Gulbenkian, and ZKM Karlsruhe. He has collaborated with Ensemble Modern, Klangforum Heidelberg, Dresden Symphony, Ensemble Intégrales and light artist rosalie. As a jazz guitarist he is active with concerts and CD productions in Europe and the USA.
Matthias Ockert received, in addition to numerous scholarships, the First Prize at the International Composition Competition for the Space of the "Transparent Factory" in Dresden with "diaphaneity" for large ensemble in seven groups, the Residence Prize of the International Competition of Electroacoustic Music Bourges, the "operare" Realization Prize of the Contemporary Opera Berlin and the Walter Fink Prize of the ZKM Karlsruhe for Dance, Electronic Music and Media. In 2020 he was one of the three finalists at the New German Composition Prize (final cancelled due to Corona crisis). With his "Polytheistic Ensemble", founded in 2012, he combines contemporary composition, jazz, electronics and video art. In 2013 his portrait CD "laminar flow" was released by wergo in the Edition Zeitgenössische Musik of the German Music Council.
Matthias Ockert is a teacher for guitar/e-guitar at Klangfächer Karlsruhe and taught composition/multimedia at HfG Offenbach from 2009 to 2017.