Born in Graz in 1968, Olga Neuwirth took up the trumpet at the age of seven, likely following in the footsteps of her father, an esteemed jazz pianist. At the age of 17, she spent a year in San Francisco, where she studied composition and music theory at the Conservatory of Music, alongside studies of visual arts and cinema at the SF Art College.

Upon her return to Austria in 1987, she undertook further study of composition with Erich Urbanner at the Vienna University of Music and Performing Arts. Her Master’s thesis was titled “On the use of film music in L’amour à mort by Alain Resnais.” During this time, she also studied electroacoustic music with Dieter Kaufmann and Wilhelm Zobl at the Vienna Institute of Electroacoustic Music. Wishing to deepen her knowledge of music technology, she attended classes with Tristan Murail in Paris in 1993-94, and participated in a workshop at IRCAM. Around this time, she met Adriana Hölszky, Vinko Globokar, and, most significantly, Luigi Nono, who (along with Tristan Murail) would have a decisive influence on her creative development.

Significant recognition of her talent came in 1991, when, before concluding her studies, Elfriede Jelinek, future Nobel laureate for literature, chose her for a collaboration on two mini-operas for the Wiener Festwochen. In 1994, she served as a member of the jury for the New Theatrical Music Biennale in Munich and the Composers’ Forum at the Darmstadt Summer Courses. In 1996, she received a DAAD grant, and in 1998, two portrait concerts of her works were presented as part of the “Next Generation” series at the Salzburg Festival.

She again collaborated with Elfriede Jelinek and the Wiener Festwochen for her first large-scale theatrical work, Bählamms Fest (1997-1998), after Leonora Carrington; the piece was subsequently awarded the Ernst Krenek Prize. The following year, as part of celebrations of Pierre Boulez’s 75th birthday, she composed Clinamen / Nodus, which was premiered by the London Symphony Orchestra with Boulez conducting. In the same year, she was composer-in-residence with the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, and two years later, was guest composer at the Lucerne Festival, where she once again worked with Pierre Boulez.

Subsequently, Neuwirth received a string of commissions for concert and theatrical works (such as …ce qui arrive… [2004], a setting of texts by Paul Auster), film music, installations, and video clips. Major institutions and festivals, as well as leading new music ensembles, widely programme her music.

In 2003, Neuwirth once again collaborated with Elfriede Jelinek on Lost Highway, based on the film by David Lynch, which premiered at the Styrian autumn Festival in 2003. In 2006, trumpetist Håkan Hardenberger and the Wiener Philharmoniker (led by Pierre Boulez) premiered her trumpet concerto …miramondo multiplo… at the Salzburg Festival. In 2012, while living in New York, she completed the operas The Outcast and American Lulu. In 2015, Masaot/Clocks without Hands was premiered in Cologne by the Vienna Philharmonic, with Daniel Harding conducting, and her work for ensemble and electronics Le Encantadas o le avventure nel mare delle meraviglie was premiered at the Donaueschinger Musiktage by Ensemble Intercontemporain, conducted by Matthias Pintscher. In 2016, she was composer-in-residence at the Lucerne Festival, during which her percussion concerto Trurliade-Zone Zero was premiered.

In March 2017, her 3D-sound installation, created in collaboration with IRCAM, opened at the Pompidou Centre as part of celebrations of the 40th anniversary of the inauguration of the museum. In the same year, she worked with architect Peter Zumthor and Asymptote Architects. In 2019, her opera Orlando, a radical feminist adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s novel, became the first work by a woman composer to be premiered at the Vienna Opera House.

Her works are published by Ricordi and Boosey & Hawkes, and have been recorded on the Accord, Col Legno, and Kairos labels.

Olga Neuwirth is a member of the Berlin and Munich Academies of the Arts.

Awards and Prizes

• 1994: “Publicity Prize” from Austro Mechana
• 1996: DAAD Scholarship (Berlin)
• 1999: Ernst von Siemens Foundation Förderpreis (Munich); Hindemith Prize at the Schleswig-Holstein Festival; Ernst Krenek Prize
• 2006: Elected member of the Berlin Academy of the Arts
• 2008: Artists’ Prize from the City of Heidelberg
• 2010: Louis Spohr Prize from the City of Brauschweig; Großer Österreichischer Staatspreis
• 2020: Schumann Prize for Music and Poetry
• 2021: “Wolf Prize in Arts” for music from the Wolf Foundation