aural scenography & auditory mindfulness
My music blends fieldrecording soundart and musique concrète instrumentale, often incorporating concert installations and sculpting sound in performances. I’m drawn to an artistic version of aural scenography and sounding anthropology, aiming to roll out animating and inspiring acoustic environments and experiences. Recently, I’ve been exploring the field of autoethnography, dealing with recordings of special places and the sounds of human habits and biography to evoke an auditory mindfulness.
Über Daniel Smutny
Born in Mannheim, Daniel studied with Hans Zender, Isabel Mundry, and Bernhard Kontarsky at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts (HfMDK). Awards include the Stuttgart Composition Prize (twice) (1998, 2009), the BMW Composition Prize of the musica viva of the Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation (2003), and the Paul Hindemith Composition Prize of the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival (2013). He has received scholarships from numerous organizations, including the Villa Aurora Los Angeles/Berlin, the Weimar Scholarship, the Cultural Foundations of Saxony and Baden-Württemberg, and the Heinrich Strobel Foundation of the Southwest German Radio (SWR). He received the Busoni Prize from the Berlin Academy of Arts, the Tonali Composition Prize (2013), and was nominated for the German Music Authors' Prize (2019).
Daniel Smutny has served as artistic director for various institutions, including MDR Leipzig, the Festspielhaus Hellerau, and the Stuttgart State Theater. He has held teaching positions in music theory and performance music, as well as substitute professorships in composition (HfM Detmold, HfK Bremen).
A portrait CD (2009) was released by the German Music Council in the Edition Zeitgenössische Musik series. Texts on the music have appeared in the magazines Seiltanz, Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, NMZ, and MusikTexte, and radio and television broadcasts have been broadcast by SWR, MDR, and BR.
In 2011, his first piece of music theater, "Ferne Nähe," premiered as a commission from the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation. His works have been performed both at home and abroad, including at the Dresden Semperoper, the Stuttgart State Opera, the Leipzig Gewandhaus, the ECLAT Festival, the Darmstadt Summer Courses, the Donaueschinger Musiktage, the BR's musica viva, the WDR's Musik der Zeit, the Ultraschall Festival Berlin, and the Schwetzingen Palace Festival. Prominent performers of Daniel Smutny's music are Klangforum Wien, Ensemble Modern, the SWR Vocal Ensemble and Symphony Orchestra, and the piano duo Tal & Groethuysen.
50+
Künstlerische Projekte
30+
Konzerte weltweit
20+
Kollaborationen
fixed media works
Innovative Fieldrecording-Projekte, die Klänge von besonderen Orten erfassen und erforschen.
concert pieces
Faszinierende Kompositionen, die instrumentale Klänge mit Feldaufnahmen kombinieren.
instruments and play in
Einzigartige Konzertinstallationen, die Klang und Raum verschmelzen lassen.
performances
Inspirierende Klangperformances, die das Publikum in akustische Welten eintauchen lassen.
