Photos © Marco Borggreve
Trained by Gerd Starke in Munich and Charles Neidich at the Juilliard School New York, the clarinetist JÖRG WIDMANN is regularly invited to major international orchestras such as the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Orchester National de France, Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, National Symphony Orchestra Washington, Orchester symphonique de Montréal, National Symphony Orchestra Taiwan, Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra and Toronto Symphony Orchestra and concert with conductors such as Daniel Barenboim, Kent Nagano, Christoph Eschenbach and Christoph von Dohnanyi.
Jörg Widmann studied composition with Kay Westermann, Wilfried Hiller and Wolfgang Rihm. His work has received many awards, most recently the prestigious Stoeger Prize of the New York Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (2009), which is awarded only once every two years. In 2001, Jörg Widmann received the Hindemith Prize of the State of Schleswig-Holstein, in 2004 the Schönberg Prize of the Arnold Schönberg Center Vienna, the German Symphony Orchestra Berlin and DeutschlandRadio Berlin. In 2006 he was awarded the Compositive Prize of the SWR Symphony Orchestra Baden-Baden and Freiburg for the most notable premiere of the Donaueschinger Musiktage as well as the Claudio Abbado Composition Prize of the Orchestra Academy of the Berliner Philharmoniker.
In 2009, the music theater "At the Beginning" by Anselm Keifer and Jörg Widmann was premiered for the 20th anniversary of the Paris Opéra Bastille. Widmann acted here as a composer, Klarniettist and gave his debut as a conductor.
In 2011, his flute concerto "Flute en suite" was premiered by Joshua Smith and the Cleveland Orchestra under the baton of Franz Welser-Möst, which had its European premiere in the 2012/13 season with Emmanuel Pahud and the Berliner Philharmoniker. In 2014, "Flute en suite" was the central work on the Cleveland Orchestra's European tour.
As part of the Donaueschinger Musiktage 2015 he premiered the new clarinet concerto "über" by Mark Andre. Several clarinet concerts have been dedicated to him and premiered by him, i.a. such as the "Music for Clarinet and Orchestra" by Wolfang Rihm (1999) and "Cantus" by Airbert Reimann (2006).
In August 2018 he conducted the world premiere of his second Violin Concerto with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra and Carolin Widmann in Tokyo's Suntory Hall, a work on the program this season at the Orchester de Paris and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra.
Jörg Widmann is one of the most exciting and versatile artists of his generation. Solo performances this season lead him to orchestras such as the National Symphony Orchestra Taiwan and Shao Chia Lu, the NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover under Andrew Manze, the Kammerorchester Basel with Heinz Holliger and the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunk under the baton of Susanna Mälkki.
As Artist in Residence with the National Symphony Orchestra Taiwan, Jörg Widmann can be experienced as a clarinetist with Mozart's clarinet concerto and as a conductor in a play / direct program and as a composer. His work will also be in focus at the Orchester de Paris next season.
Jörg Widmann is constantly expanding his activities as a conductor. In the season of 2018/19 he will perform with Orchestra della Svizzera Italian, the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, the Boulez Ensemble Berlin and the Kammerakademie Potsdam. In the spring of 2019 he conducted the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie on tour, with the Irish Chamber Orchestra, whose chief conductor he is, he is on tour through South America with concerts in Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. In addition, a tour will take the Hagen Quartet and Jörg Widmann to Freiburg, Hamburg, New York's Carnegie Hall and Baltimore's Shriver Hall.
In November 2018, Jörg Widmann received the Robert Schumann Prize for poetry and music in Mainz. The prize is awarded every two years for outstanding works.