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The German composer, Siegfried Thiele, was born the son of a craftsman. As early as the age of 12, he created his first compositions. He had music lessons with Werner Hübschmann and participated in Paul Kurzbach's Studiochor der Volksbühne Chemnitz. After his graduation in 1952 he studied from 1953 to 1958 composition with Wilhelm Weismann and Johannes Weyrauch, conducting with Franz Jung and Heinz Rögner and piano with Rudolf Fischer and Amadeus Webersinke at the Hochschule für Musik "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy" in Leipzig.
From 1958 to 1962 Siegfried Thiele was a teacher and choral and orchestral conductor at the music schools in Radeberg and Wurzen. In 1959 he directed his chamber music, symphonic and choral works, both at home and abroad. Since that time, he also operates in the Leipzig community with the Christian Community as a musician and composer of liturgical and other works.
From 1960 to 1962 Siegfried Thiele studied composition with Leo Spies at the Akademie der Künste Ost-Berlin. In 1962 he began teaching at the Hochschule für Musik in Leipzig in the subjects of music theory and score playing and in 1963 founded the Leipziger Jugendsinfonieorchester, which he directed until 1978. At the Leipziger Musikhochschule he was a lecturer from 1971 to 1999 (since 1984 Professor) for composition. His most famous pupils there were the composer Bernd Franke and Steffen Schleiermacher.
For the opening of the New Gewandhaus in Leipzig on October 8, 1981, Siegfried Thiele composed the great commissioned work Gesänge an die Sonne (Songs to the Sun) for alto and tenor solo, organ, choir and orchestra. It was premiered at the opening concert, led by former Gewandhaus conductor Kurt Masur. The texts Thiele took the texts from Prolog im Himmel from Goethe's Faust, Schiller's poem An die Sonne and Hölderlin's Dem Sonnengott.
On October 1, 1990 Siegfried Thiele was appointed Rector of the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Leipzig. In 1994 he was re-elected in this capacity for another three years. Since 1992 he is member of the Freien Akademie der Künste in Leipzig, and since 1996 Sächsische Akademie der Künste in Dresden. In 1999 he was guest of honour at the Villa Massimo in Rome. In 2001 he was appointed as honorary senator of the Hochschule für Musik und Theater "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy" in Leipzig.
Awards: Prize of the City of Leipzig (1979); Prize of the GDR (1983); Merit of the Free State of Saxony (1992). Siegfried Thiele is married to Uta Thiele and still lives in Leipzig. |
