Gerhard Stäbler was born in 1949 in Wilhelmsdorf, near Ravensburg in southern Germany. In 1968 he began studies in composition at the Nordwestdeutsche Musikakademie in Detmold, continuing at the Folkwang-Hochschule in Essen, where he studied composition with Nicolaus A. Huber and organ with Gerd Zacher.
The Cornelius Cardew Memorial Prize (1982) was the first in a series of awards, prizes, commissions and scholarships he has received. Since the beginning of his career, Stäbler has been active not only as a composer, but also in politics and organization. The Aktive Musik new music festival was founded by Stäbler, and he was artistic director of the 1995 World Music Days of the ISCM, held in the Ruhr. He has taught workshops and seminars involving young composers and performers all over the world, and has been composer in residence and visiting professor at many institutions in North and South America, in Australia, and Singapur, as well as in the Middle and Far East.
Stäbler’s music often transcends conventional frameworks and audience expectations through the use of gestures or movement, space, lighting, olfactory stimulation, or the active involvement of the audience. He finds it important to simulate the imagination, to sensitize the ears and other senses to unexpected perceptual and thought processes. This is the origin of his interest in the interaction of composition and improvisation, which is rooted in the unique tension between performers during the pre-established yet open musical moment, as seen for instance in his graphic score Hart auf hart (1986). For the same reasons, his music is always characterized by carefully considered development, containing elaborate constructions that don’t impede the immanent musical statement.
