Caspar Johannes Walter

born in 1964 in Frankfurt am Main, he studied composition with Volker David Kirchner (Wiesbaden), and with Johannes Fritsch and Klarenz Barlow at the Music Conservatory in Cologne (1985–90). He has received several major composition awards including First Prize in the Stuttgart Composition Competition (1991), the 13th Irino Prize for Orchestra (Japan, 1992), First Prize in the ‘Wien Modern’ Competition (1995), the Hindemith Award of the Schleswig-Holstein Festival and the award for the most promising composer from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. He received grants from the Künstlerhof Schreyahn (Artists’ Colony), Lower Saxony (1995/96) and the Villa Massimo in Rome (1998). He represented the young generation of Cologne musicians in New York (1989) and Atlanta (1993) in exchange projects sponsored by the Goethe Institut. His pieces were selected for the World Music Days in Stockholm (1994) and Copenhagen (1996) and are performed regularly in Europe, the United States and Japan.
A cd with chamber music works by Caspar Johannes Walter released by the German Council of Music on the Label Wergo was awarded the ‘Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik’ in 1998.
His interests as an interpreter (he is cellist in the Thürmchen Ensemble, which he also co-founded in 1991) are focused primarily on young composers from the areas of experimental music and musical theatre.
In 2002/03 Caspar Johannes Walter was composer-in-residence and composition teacher at the University of Birmingham.
His orchestral output includes 4 Stücke gegen den Stillstand (with solo trumpet), gekrümmte Räume, Lebenslinie (with solo violin and solo cello) and Zeichnung (with solo violin and four solo percussion players). His other major works are L’infinito for seven voices, Angst und Ahnung for voice, trumpet and string orchestra, and Wetterleuchten for 12 voices and two percussion players. He also writes music for the stage, radio and film.

Fünf Ohren

Fünf Ohren – und kein Ton darin!
Die Welt ward stumm…
Ich horchte mit dem Ohr meiner Neugierde:
Fünfmal warf ich die Angel über mich,
fünfmal zog ich keinen Fisch herauf. –
Ich fragte, – keine Antwort lief mir ins Netz…

Ich horchte mit dem Ohr meiner Liebe…

(Friedrich Nietzsche, Das eherne Schweigen, 1888)