Bernhard Lang

Bernhard Lang (* February 24, 1957 in Linz) is an Austrian composer, improvisationalist and programmer of musical patches and applications. His work can be described as modern contemporary music, with roots, however, in various genres such as 20th-century avant-garde, European classical music, jazz, free jazz, rock, punk, techno, EDM, electronica, electronic music and computer-generated music. His works are performed on all relevant festivals of modern music and range from solo pieces and chamber music to large ensemble pieces and works for orchestra and musical theater. Besides music for concert halls, Lang designs sound and music for theater, dance, film and sound installations. Bernhard Lang came to prominence with his work cycle “Differenz / Wiederholung” (“difference / repetition”) in which he illuminated and examined the themes of reproductive and DJ cultures based on the philosophic work of Gilles Deleuze. Socio-cultural and societally critical questions, as in “Das Theater der Wiederholungen”, 2003 (“The Theatre of Repetitions”), are as closely examined as intrinsic musical and music-cultural problems (“I hate Mozart”, 2006). Another focus is the “recycling” of historic music, which Lang performs using self-programmed patches, applying filter and mutation processes (as in the “Monadologie” cycle). Alongside classical European instruments, Lang also makes use of their amplified electrical counterparts (e.g. electric viola) as well as mutually microtonally de-tuned ensemble groups. Analogue and digital synthesizers, keyboards, rock music instruments (electric guitar and bass, drumset), turntables (the trailblazing instrument of the reproductive culture), rappers, Arabian singers, speech and live-electronics (mainly the self-programmed “Loop Generator”) are similarly used.

Bernhard Lang studied at the Brucknerkonservatorium in Linz (Austria). In 1975, he moved to Graz to study philosophy and German philology, jazz theory (D. Glawischnig), piano (H. Neuwirth), counterpoint (Hermann Markus Pressl), harmonics and composition (A. Dobrowolski). From 1977 to 1981, he worked with various jazz ensembles as composer, arranger and piano player. At the Institute of Electronic Music (IEM) in Graz, he started to confront electronic music and computer-based composition systems. From 1984 to 1989 he worked at the Conservatory in Graz while continuing his studies with G. F. Haas and G. Neuwirth. In 1987 he co-founded the composer's club “die andere saite” (loosely “the alternate string”, a German-language pun referring also to “the other side”). Together with W. Ritsch he developed the software CADMUS in C++. In 1989 he began teaching at the Graz University of the Arts. In 1999 he moved to Vienna as a freelance composer.

Lang frequently collaborates with artists form other genres including choreographers, electronic musicians, video artists and DJs. He is particularly known for the provocatively titled opera I Hate Mozart, with libretto by Michael Sturminger, composed for the Viennese Mozart year festival in 2006. Das Theater der Wiederholungen, based on the writings of the Marquis de Sade and William S. Burroughs and choreographed by Xavier Le Roy, was premiered at the Graz in 2003. His Monadology II was given its British premiere at the Edinburgh International Festival in September 2008, broadcast on BBC Radio 3. Monadology uses a concept Lang calls "musical-cellular processing", which Lang says is derived from Leibniz’s Monadology.

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