Oliver Schneller
b. 1966
Biography
Oliver Schneller (b. 1966 in Cologne) grew up in North Africa, Europe and Asia, first studying composition at the New England Conservatory in Boston, then at Columbia University New York, where he received his doctoral degree in composition as a student of Tristan Murail in 2002. Throughout his studies, masterclasses with Salvatore Sciarrino, George Benjamin, Jonathan Harvey, and Brian Ferneyhough provided important orientations.
His music has been performed at international festivals including Ars Musica Bruxelles, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Munich Biennale, Beijing Modern, Shanghai Contemporary Music Week, Musica Strasbourg, Présences Paris, Witten, and as part of the "Millenium Stage Series" at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, performed by collectives such as Ensemble Modern, Ensemble Intercontemporain, MusikFabrik, Percussions de Strasbourg, Avanti!, Orchestre National de France, SWR Orchestra, or the the Tanglewood Music Center Symphony Orchestra.
From 2002 to 2004 he worked as a compositeur en recherche at Ircam.
Schneller is a recipient of the Rome Prize of the German Academy Villa Massimo, the 2010 Ernst-von-Siemens Music Foundation 2010 Composers Award, and numerous ASCAP Awards.
His music has been released on Mode Records, Wergo, Hathut, Telos, and CPO Labels.
As a saxophonist, Schneller has performed with ensembles such as the George Russell Big Band, the Gustav Mahler Youth Symphony under Seiji Ozawa, and the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra as a soloist in Tan Dun's Red Forcast.
Schneller held composition professorships in Stuttgart, Hannover, and at the Eastman School of Music. In 2019, he was appointed professor of composition at the Robert Schumann Conservatory in Düsseldorf, where he also directs the SoundCube Composition Lab.