About
Mauricio Raúl Kagel (December 24, 1931 – September 18, 2008) was a German-Argentine composer notable for developing the theatrical side of musical performance (Grimshaw 2009). He spent his last fifty years in Germany, dying after a long illness at the age of 76 (Nonnenmann 2008).
Kagel was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, into an Ashkenazi Jewish family that had fled from Russia in the 1920s (Anon. n.d.). He studied music, history of literature, and philosophy in Buenos Aires (Grimshaw 2009). In 1957 he moved as a scholar to Cologne, Germany, where he lived until his death.
As teacher
From 1960–66 and 1972–76 he taught at the International Summer School at Darmstadt (Attinello 2001). He also taught from 1964–65 at the State University of New York at Buffalo as Slee Professor of music theory. At the Berlin Film and Television Academy he was a visiting lecturer. He served as director of courses for new music in Gothenburg and Cologne (Attinello 2001). He was professor for new music theatre at the Cologne Conservatory from 1974–97. Among his students were Maria de Alvear, Carola Bauckholt, Branimir Krstić, David Sawer, Rickard Scheffer [sv], Juan Maria Solare, Gerald Barry, and Chao-Ming Tung. See: List of music students by teacher: K to M#Mauricio Kagel.
As composer
Some of his pieces give specific theatrical instructions to the performers (Kennedy and Bourne 2006), such as to adopt certain facial expressions while playing, to make their stage entrances in a particular way, to physically interact with other performers, and so on. For this reason commentators at times related his work to the Theatre of the Absurd.[citation needed] He has been regarded by music historians as deploying a critical intelligence interrogating the position of music in society (Griffiths 1978, 188). He was also active in the fields of film and photography, proving that the possibilities of music are inexhaustible. In 1991 Kagel was invited by Walter Fink as the second composer featured in the annual Komponistenporträt of the Rheingau Musik Festival. In 2000 he received the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize.