Oliver Schneller

Oliver Martin Schneller (born 26 March 1966 in Cologne) is a German composer and saxophonist.

Schneller grew up in Ireland, Sudan, Belgium and the Philippines.

After completing a MA in musicology, political science and history at the University of Bonn, he worked for the Goethe Institute in Kathmandu, Nepal (1990–91).

In 1994 he moved to the US, first studying composition at the New England Conservatory in Boston.

From 2000–01 he lived in Paris attending a yearlong course at IRCAM/Centre Pompidou.

Schneller's music has been performed at international festivals such as Festival Agora Paris, Musica Strasbourg, Munich Biennale, MaerzMusik Berlin, Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik, Ultraschall, Wien Modern, IFNM Darmstadt, Tremplins Paris, Les Musiques Marseille, musique action Nancy, Musica nova, Wintermusic Berlin, Karnatic Lab, Alternativa Moscow, the International Computer Music Conference, in Singapore and Göteborg, Musicaaoustica Beijing, Takefu Japan, Indaba, Aspen Music Festival and School, Tanglewood Music Festival, Frankfurt 2000, and the Millenium Stage Series at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC.

He was a visiting composer at the 2001 Festival of Contemporary Music at the University of Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, and a featured composer at Festival Résonances at IRCAM (2002).

His works have been performed by numerous ensembles including Ensemble modern, Ensemble InterContemporain, MusikFabrik, Ictus Ensemble, Avanti!, ensemble recherche, Speculum Musicae, Court Circuit, Ensemble Mosaik, Südwestrundfunk Orchestra, Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin, Ensemble Courage, Antares, the Tanglewood Symphony Orchestra, and St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble.

As a saxophonist, he has performed with the George Russell Big Band, the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra under Seiji Ozawa, with the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra as a soloist in Tan Dun's "Red Forecast", as well as with musicians such as Steve Drury, Heather O'Donnell, Jiggs Whigham (Big Band), Bernhard Lang, Ned McGowan, Robin Hayward, Vinko Globokar, and Gert Matthias Wegner.

In 2002 he received his doctoral degree in composition at Columbia University as a student of Tristan Murail, where he also taught composition and computer music as an assistant to Murail.

During his time in New York Schneller developed and managed the Computer Music Studio at the Graduate Center of CUNY and taught harmony and counterpoint at Baruch College].

Master classes with Salvatore Sciarrino, Jonathan Harvey, Brian Ferneyhough, George Benjamin, and Vinko Globokar provided important orientations.

From 2002 to 2004 he was compositeur en recherche at IRCAM working on Jardin des fleuves, a work for ensemble and live-electronic.

In 2004 he was the artistic director of the Tracing Migrations Festival in Berlin which led to the foundation of the Tracing Migrations Project, an ongoing documentation and permanently updated data base of contemporary compositions, recordings and newly founded music institutions from the Arab world.

In 2004, together with Jean-Luc Hervé and Thierry Blondeau, he formed the composers collective Biotope.

In 2005 he was the curator of the project The Musical Moment at Berlin's House of World Cultures featuring composers Toshio Hosokawa and Helmut Lachenmann.

From 2005–06 he was a guest lecturer and mentor in Cairo as part of the Global Interplay project of Musik der Jahrhunderte, Stuttgart.

At Berlin University of the Arts he taught the seminar "Psychoacoustics and Acoustics for Composers".

Schneller is the artistic director of the SinusTon Festival for Experimental Music in Magdeburg which he co-founded with Carsten Gerth in 2008.

Since 2009 he serves as sound arts curator of ha'atelier Platform for Philosophy and Art and Taswir Projects.

His works have been recorded on Wergo, Mode, Hathut, Telos, and LJ Records.

From 2009–2010 Schneller held a professorship in composition at the State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart as a sabbatical replacement for Prof. Marco Stroppa.

From 2012–2015 he was a professor of composition at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover.

In this function he was a co-curator at Berlin's MaerzMusik Festival 2013.

In 2015 Schneller was appointed professor of composition and director of the Eastman Computer Music Center at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester.

Since 2019 he is professor for composition at the Robert Schumann Hochschule Düsseldorf in Düsseldorf, where he currently resides with his wife, pianist Heather O'Donnell, and daughter.