Clemens Gadenstätter

Composer whose work explores the interplay of listening, understanding, and composing, focusing on perception, affect, and the semantics of sound.

Clemens Gadenstätter is a composer who engages with the substance of music like few others of his generation. His interest lies not in the raw material itself or in a “critical examination” of it, as is often claimed, but in a philosophy of listening, understanding, and perceiving, grounded in semantic analysis and a close study of perceptual phenomena. This philosophy has two sides: one describing sound, its perception, and its structuring, and another that is the sounding piece itself. His essays sketch out models of our own sensory apparatus, models that remain inspiring and applicable beyond his own works.

His work explores the interplay of listening, understanding, and composing, focusing on perception, affect, and the semantics of sound. Key cycles include E.P.O.S. (les premiers cris, les cris des lumières, les derniers cris), Semantical Investigations I & II, the Paramyth series (häuten, schlitzen, reißen, platzen/bersten), the Iconosonics cycle, and the multimedia project daily transformations, with Anna Henckel-Donnersmark and Lisa Spalt.

Commissions have come from the Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik (WDR), Donaueschinger Musiktage (SWR), Salzburg Festival, Wien Modern, Steirischer Herbst, and ensembles such as Klangforum Wien, Ensemble Modern, Ensemble Recherche, l’instant donné (Paris), Asamisimasa (Oslo), and the Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart. He has collaborated with orchestras including the RSO Vienna, RSB Berlin, and the Orchestre Philharmonique Luxembourg, as well as with conductors such as Peter Eötvös, Peter Rundel, Beat Furrer, Pascal Rophé, and Johannes Kalitzke.