Rendezvous: Registre des lumières, June 14
Hans Zender studied the piano and orchestral conducting (with Wolfgang Fortner) at the Musikhochschulen in Frankfort and Fribourg-en-Brisgau from 1956 to 1963. After a residency at the Villa Massimo de Rome from 1963 to 1964, he began his career as a conductor as the musical director of the Bonn Opera. He held this position for 4 years before returning to Rome in 1968-1969. The Kiel Opera solicited him and then from 1971 to 1984, he led the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Saarbrücken Symphony Orchestra. He served as the general music director for the Hamburg Opera from 1984 to 1987. He has taken part in the festivals of Beirut, Salzburg, Berlin, and Vienna.
In the 1960s, Zender became a major composer via his productions for voice (the series of 8 Canto for different vocal and instrumental formations), for the stage (Don Quixote de la Mancha (1989-1991), Stephen Climax (1979-1984)), as well as adaptations or orchestrations (Five Preludes by Claude Deubssy (1991), Schubert’s Winterreise – Eine komponierte Interpretation (1993)).
Originally influenced by Bernd Alois Zimmermann and by Pierre Boulez, he distanced himself from serial music which he refused as overly dogmatic, and turned towards the spirituality, art, and philosophy of the Far East. Numerous works are inspired by Asian, notably Japanese, calligraphy and poems: the series for orchestra Kalligraphie (1997-2004), Muji no kyo (1974), Fûrin No Kyô (1989). Sung or not, like in the chamber music series Hölderlin lessen, Zender’s oeuvre is also anchored in Western thought: Heraclitus, the Bible, Meister Eckhart, Kantate nach Worten von Meister Eckhart (1980), Saint Jean de la Croix Tres canciones (2005).