The composer Johanna Doderer was born in Bregenz in 1969. She studied composition and music theory in Graz with Beat Furrer and then in Vienna with Erich Urbanner, as well as film and media composition with Klaus Peter Sattler.
The artist has enjoyed a long-standing collaboration with distinguished musicians, and her music is performed in the world's most important concert halls. These compositions express a nonconformist lifestyle, permeated by the search for the essential. Among the 10 operas commissioned in recent years are two short operas and a children's opera. Johanna Doderer is the first woman to have a commissioned opera premiered in the main hall of the Vienna State Opera (Fatima, oder von den mutigen Kinder, 2015).
Her operas have been performed at the Landestheater Innsbruck, the Vienna Festival, the Theater an der Wien, the Museumsquartier Vienna, the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz Munich, the Erfurt Opera, the Mecklenburgisches Staatstheater Schwerin, the Stuttgart State Opera, and the Komische Oper Berlin, among others. Her third opera, commissioned by the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz, is currently being written under the artistic direction of Josef E. Köpplinger. This work, based on a libretto by Peter Turrini, will premiere in Munich in the fall of 2025.
The artist's other compositional focus lies on chamber music, orchestral music, and especially sacred music. In 2024, her Mass for Choir and Orchestra was premiered by the Vienna Court Orchestra. It was the first mass by a woman to be performed in this famous, 500-year-old venue.
In recent years, the composer has received, among other honors, the Ernst Krenek Prize, the City of Vienna's highest composition award. Johanna Doderer currently lives about an hour outside of Vienna in the tranquility and seclusion of the Schmida Valley. Since 2018, she has directed the annual "hören:Sitzendorf" festival in the Schmida Valley, which takes place in June and has been renamed "Das klingende Schloss" since 2024. www.dasklingendeschloss.at
Her works have been published by the Doblinger Vienna music publisher, Universal Edition Vienna and by her own publishing house.
COMPOSITION
Johanna
Doderer
Johanna Doderer writes music that has a direct impact. She operates in her own distinctive sound language, far removed from mainstream contemporary music.