Thomas Wilbrandt

Thomas Wilbrandt (born 1952 in Bielefeld) is a German composer and conductor. He studied with Franco Ferrara, Hans Swarowsky and Bruno Maderna in Rome, Vienna and Salzburg and was Assistant to Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic for three years in Berlin and Salzburg. In 1980 he founded the Berlin Chamber Academy (Berliner Kammer-Akademie), a forty-piece orchestra originally formed from players of the Berlin Philharmonic, with whom he recorded a Mozart Series for RCA/Victor. The Berlin Chamber Academy received positive reviews for varying reasons. Next to international conducting activities and cooperations with major orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic and the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, Wilbrandt became more involved in his own projects and recordings, concentrating on his work as a composer, especially in the field of Avant-garde and electronic music. This led to developed experimentation regarding multimedia content and expression and to the constant exploration of new forms of music presentation. Wilbrandt's ongoing issue and ambition was to transform and merge sound and vision into a stimulating new dimension. One of his first major projects was the creation of a new kind of fusion between acoustic orchestral playing and digital and electronic instruments and sounds, entitled THE ELECTRIC V., a then unheard approach to Vivaldi's famous concert cycle The Four Seasons. The musical style he developed after the formula was a combination of tradition and innovation. The first edition of THE ELECTRIC V. was released in 1984 in twenty countries and rapidly became a worldwide bestseller that was selected by critics as being one of the best available productions on CD in terms both of musical quality and audio technology. Wilbrandt wrote, directed, and produced THE ELECTRIC V. film between 1987 and 1990. Using the most modern state-of-the-art post-production techniques, it was the first realisation of an audio-visual project on such a large scale. Wilbrandt has composed and advised music for several films and documentaries; amongst others, for the AOS project he contributed music to the highly acclaimed soundtrack of Oliver Stone's film Natural Born Killers. Ballets with Wilbrandt's music are performed worldwide. 2011 saw the launch of FENNster, a Berlin-based Foundation for Contemporary Art and Multimedia Innovation, initiated by Thomas Wilbrandt. The objective of the foundation was to foster new impulses, combining innovative potential and creative forms of expression as well supporting young artists with studio and working spaces and to develop their creative potential and abilities.