An Austrian composer born August 4, 1968 in Vienne.
A trumpeter by training, Olga Neuwirth studied at the Conservatory of Music in San Francisco and initiated herself into the visual arts and the cinema at the Art College, before continuing her cursus at the Hochschule for music and theatre in Vienna. She also studied electro-acoustic music and took part in the computer music course at Ircam (1993-1994) where she met Tristan Murail. Her musical references range from early to contemporary music and include jazz. She also finds inspiration in other arts, such as sculpture and the cinema. Literature is also very much present in her works, notably through texts of Goethe, Baudelaire, Michel Butor and especially Elfriede Jelinek, with whom she began an amicable and artistic collaboration in the late 1980s, creating operas and music theatre works, Hörspiel and incidental music. Olga Neuwirth employs a sound palette that blends everyday noises, sounds that have been manipulated electronically, acoustic sounds, and she specialises in multimedia works. Her style plays on the alternation of contrasted sequences, exploits heterogeneous materials and uses techniques of superimposition. Her compositions, often premiered in Austria or Germany, subsequently spread throughout Europe (Festival d'Automne, Festival Musica, Festival de Lucerne, etc.). Her works include Bählamms Fest (1998), Lost Highway (2003), a concerto for trumpet Miramondo multiplo (2006), Remnants of Song… An Amphigory (2009), The Outcast (2011).