Werner Heider

Werner Heider was born on 1 January 1930 in Fürth, Bavaria. He lives as a freelance composer, pianist and conductor in Erlangen and is the father of the two percussionists Tilo and Peter Heider.

He studied with Willy Spilling in Nuremberg and at the Musikhochschule in Munich with Karl Höller (composition), Maria Landes-Hindemith (piano) and Heinrich Knappe (conducting). He also attended the Darmstadt Summer Course for New Music several times.

As a conductor, pianist or artistic director, Werner Heider was involved in the ‘Colloquium musicale’, ‘Confronto’ - chamber music and jazz, Trio: Colbentson-Deinzer-Heider and Solo - ‘mein Klavier und ich’.

From 1968 to 2015, he was artistic director of the ‘ars nova ensemble nürnberg’. By 2020, around 170 of his works had been published, many of them on recordings.

Heider has received numerous honours, including the Culture Prize of the cities of Nuremberg (1957), Erlangen (1968) and Fürth (1970), the 1st Composition Prize of the City of Stuttgart (1965), the Rome Scholarship of the Villa Massimo (1965 | 1967) as well as the Wolfram von Eschenbach (1975) and Friedrich Baur Culture Prize (1999). He was also made an honorary member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts.

On his 95th birthday, he is honoured with several radio broadcasts by Bavarian Radio and a concert in Erlangen.
 
Numerous chamber music works by Werner Heider have been published by Heinrichshofen & Noetzel.

These range from easy to extremely demanding playing techniques - always characterised by high musical standards. His repertoire with us includes solo works for strings, winds and keyboard instruments as well as wind and string quartets. An extraordinary highlight is the Christmas carol ‘Wenn die Glocken klingen’ for voice and piano.

His latest work, the ‘5th String Quartet’, is now available and comprises three movements whose titles are the programme:
1. ‘Silenzio con anima’,
2. ‘Rhythms’ and
3 ‘Two fifths plus chorale’.