antoine beuger

Antoine Beuger (born 1955, living and working in Haan) is a Dutch composer and flautist based in Germany. In 1980, two years after finishing his composition studies with Ton de Leeuw at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam, he stopped composing for ten years. He has won international composition awards such as the Tenth International Composition Seminar in Boswil (Switzerland) in 1991 – with his piece ‘lesen, hören – buch für stimme’, for voice and prerecorded tape; the Forum Junger Komponisten of WDR Köln (Germany) in 1992 – for ‘schweigen, hören’, for percussion and orchestra; and the Sixth Kazimierz Serocki International Competition in Warsaw in 1998 – for ‘fourth music for marcia hafif (4)’, for accordion and orchestra. His pieces have been premiered at several international contemporary music festivals such as the celebrated Donaueschingen Musiktage, which hosted the premieres of ‘etwas (lied)’, for voice and piano in 1995; ‘fourth music for marcia hafif (3)’, for orchestra in 1997; and ‘wort für fort (geraum)’, for six voices, text and electronic sounds in 2003. In terms of the influence he has had in mobilising so many musicians external to Wandelweiser – partly thanks to the ensemble Konzert Minimal, created in Berlin in 2010 by Dutch double bassist Koen Nutters and Taiwanese violist and violinist Johnny Chang for the performance of the Wandelweiser repertoire and other related composers – the series of chamber pieces for open instrumentation that begins with ‘dedekind duos’ (2003), for two instrumentalists, and extends to ‘ihwe tunings for twenty’ (2008), for twenty instrumentalists, are outstanding.

He was the founder and organizer of the Klangraum concert series, which took place in 1994 at the Kunstraum in Düsseldorf, and in 1995, with the visual artist Mauser, he created the Werkraum series of events that took place in Köln until 2001.

In 1992, together with Burkhard Schlothauer, he created the record label Edition Wandelweiser, of which he has been artistic director since 1996. This platform has been important for the publication of his work: key pieces such as ‘calme étendue (spinoza)’, ‘keine fernen mehr’ and ‘dedekind duos’ having seen the light in this way, although he has also published records with other record labels such as Copy For Your Records (United States), Erstwhile Records (United States), Hibari (Japan) and Potlacht (France).