23rd Kompolize Winter 2025
The Lietzeorchester jury has made its decision: the winner of the 23rd International Composition Competition Kompolize Winter 2025 is Michael Wahlmüller with his Detox Symphony. The world premiere by the Lietzeorchester will take place on Saturday, February 22, 2025, 8 pm in the Emmaus Church in Berlin-Kreuzberg and on Saturday, March 1, 2025, 8 pm in the concert hall of the Berlin University of the Arts (Hardenbergstraße).
Michael Wahlmüller was born in Linz/Upper Austria in 1980. He studied composition, conducting, violoncello, school music, psychology and philosophy at the Anton Bruckner Private University in Linz, the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna and the University of Vienna. He teaches at the Albertus Magnus secondary school of the Association of Austrian Religious Schools in Vienna and is also a lecturer at the Private College of Education of the Diocese of Linz. Ten years ago, he founded the “Albertus Magnus Concert Series” as part of his teaching activities at Albertus Magnus Gymnasium, where, as head of the music department, he bears the main responsibility for the musical interests of the school. He was also a board member of the Austrian Society for Contemporary Music (ÖGZM) for over fifteen years.
In addition to his pedagogical and organizational duties, Michael Wahlmüller is the founder and director of the Ensemble Lentia Nova and also conducts concerts with various choirs and orchestras from Vienna, Upper Austria and Lower Austria, to which he is invited as a guest conductor.
Michael Wahlmüller's works have been performed by renowned ensembles, including the Belmonte Quartet Salzburg, the Koehne Quartet, the Max Brand Ensemble, the Lower Austrian Tonkünstlerorchester, the vocal ensemble Lala, the ensemble “die reihe” and the Wiener Concert-Verein.
His compositions are published by renowned publishers such as Musikverlag Doblinger and Universal Edition. Michael Wahlmüller has been awarded national and international prizes for his compositional work. He lives and works in Vienna and Linz.
With Detox Symphony, Michael Wahlmüller convinced the jury of the Lietzeorchester for the second time after his prize-winning piece Limerick at the 4th Kompolize Winter 2014.
Michael Wahlmüller writes about his Detox Symphony:
The Detox Symphony was composed in spring 2024 for the Kompolize composition competition. The title of the work is the program of the composition and the thoughts behind it on several levels, which I will try to explain below: Firstly, the Detox Symphony stands for the process of detoxification and purification in a physical sense, as it probably approaches everyone from time to time in these times. Secondly, the title also alludes to the mental aspect of detoxification and the inner struggle that goes hand in hand with it, which is always desirable in our social structures: liberation from stereotypes, prejudices and transferred patterns of opinion and behavior. Thirdly, the piece also plays with the idea of the history of the symphony as a genre, which until the 20th century underwent exuberant expansions in terms of all its dimensions (duration, instrumentation, meaning etc.) until it was finally regarded as conservative and reactionary and met with lasting rejection in avant-garde circles. A purification of the symphonic idea to a ten-minute work seemed to me to be stimulating in this context in the fast-moving 21st century.
The Detox Symphony consists of three main sections, which increase in liveliness and tempo and yet consist of basically the same material in terms of melodic, harmonic and rhythmic parameters. They form the basis of this piece like an inherent code that runs through the entire work in series. A very block-like, static beginning is transformed into steadily increasing mobility.
Ultimately, in harmonic terms, the piece refers to a multitude of possible tonalities, atonalities and tone genders on “D”. At the end of the piece, after the “detoxification”, the entire orchestra plays a “D” in unisono.
