York Höller

Since 1991, Höller has been a member of the Academy of Arts, Berlin.

From 1986 to 1990 Höller was lecturer in analysis and music theory at the Musikhochschule Köln. Subsequently, he succeeded Stockhausen as artistic director of the WDR Studio for Electronic Music from 1990 to 1999. In 1993 he accepted a call to the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin as professor of composition. As a successor to Hans Werner Henze he moved in 1995 in this same capacity to the Cologne Musikhochschule. In addition, Höller has presented lectures and held composition courses at many European and American colleges.

Höller was active for a short time as a répétiteur at the Staatstheater Bonn. At the Electronic Music Studio of WDR in 1971–72, he "continued his studies with Karlheinz Stockhausen" or, alternatively, "was given the chance, at Stockhausen's invitation, to realize works of his own". In any case, the technique he developed at this time—a form of extended serialism which he calls "Gestalt composition"—bears a resemblance to the older composer's formula composition, and in 1982 Höller dedicated his orchestral work Schwarze Halbinseln to Stockhausen. He quickly gained international recognition with his works. From the mid-1970s, Höller also composed at the Paris research institute IRCAM, where Pierre Boulez had invited him, and in 1989 his opera Der Meister und Margarita (after the novel of the same name by Mikhail Bulgakov) was premièred at the Grand Opéra.

Höller was born in Leverkusen. Between 1963 and 1970 he studied at the Cologne Musikhochschule: composition with Joachim Blume and Bernd Alois Zimmermann, piano with Else Schmitz-Gohr [de] and Alfons Kontarsky, and orchestral conducting with Wolfgang von der Nahmer. Parallel to this, he studied musicology and philosophy at the University of Cologne. He did further musical studies at the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik in Darmstadt with Pierre Boulez, and in 1967 sat his examination in music education.

York Höller (German pronunciation: [ˌjɔʁk ˈhœlɐ]; born 11 January 1944) is a German composer and professor of composition at the Hochschule für Musik Köln.