Heinz Werner Zimmermann

Heinz Werner Zimmermann (born 11 August 1930) is a German composer, focused on contemporary sacred music.

Zimmermann was born in Freiburg im Breisgau and had his first composition instruction from 1946 to 1948 with Julius Weismann. He studied from 1950 to 1954 in Heidelberg with Wolfgang Fortner as well as at the Kirchenmusikalisches Institut Heidelberg (Institute for Church Music) there. After passing his examinations at the Freiburg Conservatory supervised by Harald Genzmer, he became Fortner’s successor in Heidelberg. Here he maintained close contacts with the musicologist Thrasyboulos Georgiades, whose rhythm and language studies influenced him the most, along with his occupation with American spirituals and jazz. From 1963 to 1976 Heinz Werner Zimmermann was director of the Spandauer Kirchenmusikschule (Spandau school of church music) in Spandau, and then from 1975 to 1996 as successor to Kurt Hessenberg as composition teacher at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts.[1]

Zimmermann’s best-known works are his sacred motets with plucked double bass, his organ psalms, and his "Prosalieder". Among his chief works are his Missa profana, the sacred oratorio The Bible of Spirituals as well as his Symphonia sacra.

Amongst other honours, Zimmermann has been awarded the Music Prizes of Berlin, a Villa Massimo scholarship in 1965/66, and he received the Johann Sebastian Bach Prize of Stuttgart in 1982. The American Wittenberg University in Springfield bestowed upon him an honorary doctorate, Zimmermann wrote three American theses, including one at the Stanford University in California. Zimmermann is married to the organist Renate Zimmermann.