Christian Utz

Christian Utz is professor for music theory and music analysis at the University of Music and Dramatic Arts Graz, Austria, and associate professor for musicology at the University of Vienna. He has also tought musicology and composition at the Universities of Graz, and Klagenfurt as well as at the National Chiao-Tung University (Xinzhu/Taiwan) and the University of Tokyo/Japan. Utz studied composition, music theory, musicology and piano in Vienna and Karlsruhe. In 2000, he received a PhD degree at the Institute for Musicology of Vienna University with a thesis on New Music and Interculturality. From John Cage to Tan Dun (published in 2002). He has been co-editor of Lexikon der Systematischen Musikwissenschaft (Laaber-Verlag 2010), Lexikon Neue Musik (Metzler-Verlag 2016) and of the book series musik.theorien der gegenwart [6 vols., Pfau-Verlag 2007–2013]. Currently he is on the board of editors of the Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Musiktheorie ( ZGMTH).
Utz has been director of the research project A Context-Sensitive Theory of Post-tonal Sound Organization (CT∙PSO) (2012–2014), supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) and is currently directing the research project Performing, Experiencing and Theorizing Augmented Listening [PETAL] (FWF). His main fields of research include musical performance studies, history and theory of music perception, aesthetics and analysis of vocal music, andintercultural music history and analysis.

As a composer, Utz received major artistic impulses from Erich Urbanner, Dieter Kaufmann, Wolfgang Rihm, Mauricio Kagel, Luca Francesconi, Brian Ferneyhough, Salvatore Sciarrino and Helmut Lachenmann. He has been invited to the most important European seminars of new music (Session du composition Royaumont/F 1998, Stage d'informatique musicale IRCAM/Paris 1999, 14th international composition seminar in Boswil/CH 2001, composition seminar Ictus Ensemble Bruxelles 2002), and has received numerous grants and awards. Already in early phases of his artistic development, Utz tried to free compositional concepts from conventional boundaries by exploring concepts spanning the fields of music and theatre, composition and improvisation, instrumental and electronic music.
Since 1998 intercultural collaborations and concepts have become the centre of Utz’ compositional activities that are documented on his CDs Site (Composers’ Art Label 2002) and transformed (Spektral Records 2008).
In 1998 he founded AsianCultureLink to enhance intercultural exchange between European and Asian artists.


[photo: Alexander Wenzel/KUG]