Biography

Mauricio Kagel was born in Buenos Aires in 1931 and studied music, philosophy and history of literature at the university of his native city. In 1949, he was appointed artistic advisor of the Agrupación Nueva Música and in 1950 he published his first compositions. After having been supervisor at the Chamber Opera and co-repetiteur and conductor at the Teatro Colón he decided to live in Europe in 1957 and settled in Cologne. In 1958, he took part in the Darmstädter summer courses, as of 1960 as a teacher. From 1964 to 1965, he was Slee Professor of Composition at the State University of New York at Buffalo; in 1968, he was in charge of the Scandinavian Courses for Modern Music in Göteborg and from 1969 to 1975 he taught modern music in Cologne. Since 1974, he has been Professor of Neues Musiktheater at the Cologne Musikhochschule. Mauricio Kagel was ‘composer-in-residence’ of the Cologne Philharmonic Orchestra. He died in Cologne in 2008.