Departures of note

Dieter Glawischnig was born in Graz in 1938 and trained there as a pianist, trombonist and conductor, earning a doctorate in musicology in 1964. In 1969 he was among the founders of the Graz Jazz Institute, Europe's oldest academic jazz research institution, where he taught jazz practice and theory for many years. He also studied briefly at the Berklee School of Music in Boston and at the State University of New York. From 1980 he led the NDR Bigband as chief conductor and arranger for 28 years, and he built up the jazz department at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg, where he held a professorship. As a performer he worked in his own ensembles, including the trios Neighbours and Cercle, and collaborated with leading European and American avant-garde musicians such as Anthony Braxton, Tony Oxley, Karl Berger, Manfred Schoof, Gerd Dudek and Albert Mangelsdorff. He was also an original composer, setting many works to texts by the experimental poet Ernst Jandl, several of which were premiered by the NDR Bigband under the title "Laut und Luise," and he composed melodramas in the nineteenth-century tradition. Dieter Glawischnig died in his native Graz on 1 October 2026.