Biography:

Dieter Rexroth (6 March 1941 – 9 April 2024) was a German musicologist and dramaturge.

Born in Dresden on 6 March 1941,[1][2] Rexroth studied composition, conducting, musicology, German studies and philosophy at the universities of Cologne, Vienna and Bonn. In 1969 he received his doctorate in Bonn with a thesis on Arnold Schönberg.

From 1974 to 1991 he was founding director of the Hindemith Institute [de] in Frankfurt am Main. From 1980 to 1994 he was also dramaturge at the Alte Oper in Frankfurt and co-founder of the “Frankfurter Feste”, whose artistic director he was from 1986 to 1994. In 1995/1996 he developed an artistic event concept for St. Pölten as intendant of the Lower Austrian cultural scene.

From 1996 to 2006 he was intendant in the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin of the “Rundfunkorchester und Chöre GmbH. In 2000 he brought the American conductor Kent Nagano to Berlin and became his dramaturgical consultant .[3] In 2000 he also became artistic director of the Young Euro Classic festival in Berlin and directed the “Kasseler Musiktage” from 2005 to 2015. Since 2013 he has been artistic director of the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Prize, for which he conceptually focused on the promotion of the prizewinners, and chairman of the jury for composition.[4]

Rexroth was the author and editor of publications on classical composers such as Ludwig van Beethoven, Anton Webern and Paul Hindemith as well as on contemporary composers such as Hans Werner Henze and Wolfgang Rihm.

Rexroth died on 9 April 2024, at the age of 83.[2]

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