The Stockhausen Composition and Interpretation Courses

Abstract

This article deals with Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Summer Courses, which take place annually in a German town Kürten, near Cologne. Last year (between July 31 and August 9) the courses in composition and interpretation hosted 132 participants from 25 countries. The event consisted of: Stockhausen’s own lectures, the lectures of Australian composer and musicologist Richard Toop, then, master classes in interpretation held by Sotckhausen’s permanent collaborators such as Suzanne Stephens (clarinet), Kathinka Pasveer (flute), Hubert Meyer (voice), Alain Louafi (dance) etc. Also, nine concerts were held – six of them were given by the professors, and three concerts by the selected participants – with a total of 29 Stockhausen’s works performed; most of them were the pieces from his monumental, recently finished, opera cycle Licht (Light).