Karola Obermueller

Obermueller began her training at the Akademie für Tonkunst in Darmstadt. She studied composition with Volker Blumenthaler of the Meistersinger-Konservatorium and the Hochschule für Musik Nürnberg, Theo Brandmüller of the Hochschule für Musik Saar, and Adriana Hölszky of the Mozarteum Salzburg. In 2010, she completed a doctorate at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she studied with Mario Davidovsky, Bernard Rands, Julian Anderson,[1] Chaya Czernowin, Magnus Lindberg, and Harrison Birtwistle.[2] She has taught at Wellesley College and the Young Composers Program at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Since 2010, Obermueller has been one of the directors of the composition program at the University of New Mexico.[3][4]

A portrait CD of hers was released as part of the WERGO Contemporary Music Edition by the German Music Council.[3] She has received the Darmstädter Musikpreis[4] and the Bayerischer Jugendpreis des Indien-Instituts München,[5] as well as awards and commissions from the Fromm Foundation commission,[6] the ASCAP Morton Gould Awards,[7] and the Bohemians New York Musicians Club. She did a residency at the Deutschen Studienzentrum in Venedig.[8]

Obermueller frequently collaborates with her husband, American composer, Peter Gilbert. In addition to two operas, they have created an interactive installation piece called An Overlapping of Spaces, which combined a series of hanging surround-sound speaker arrays with unique iPod-based audience-interactivity. The work was featured as a centerpiece of the Perceiving Space in Art Gallery at the Davis Museum and Cultural Center between 2008 and 2010, which had previously chosen it as an Artwork of the Month.[9] Their most recent collaboration, Listening to Mountains, was presented in Germany[10] and Australia.[11]

Obermueller and Gilbert teach together at the University of New Mexico and have two children.[12]

Obermueller's first opera, Dunkelrot ("Dark Red"), was written for the opera in Nürnberg after an original libretto by Gabriele Strassmann. The opera tells the tale of an African woman seeking asylum in Germany who gets lost in the German immigration system.[13] Her second opera, Helges Leben ("Helge's Life"), was an adaptation of the eponymous play by Sibylle Berg, and was written with composer Mark Moebius. In 2009, the opera had its well-received premiere[14] by the Theater Bielefeld, in cooperation with the Deutsche Bank Stiftung and the NRW KULTURsekretariat.[15]

Gilbert and Obermueller have collaborated on two operas. Their multi-media, electronic chamber opera, Dreimaldrei gleich unendlich ("Three times three equals eternity"), has been performed in Germany[16] and the United States, including a premiere as part of the Musik der Jahrhunderte festival in Stuttgart. A prize-winner at the National Opera Association awards,[17] their opera was included in an exhibition celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe.[18] They also worked together on Robert S., an opera performed with Theater Bonn, with the composers Georg Katzer, Annette Schlünz, Peter Gilbert, and Sergej Newski.[19] The complete opera is published by Ricordi.[20]

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