Thomas Wilbrandt


Thomas Wilbrandt is a German composer and conductor. He is known for Natural Born Killers, Vaters Land, and Perlasca.

Education

Wilbrandt studied with Franco Ferrara, Hans Swarowsky, and Bruno Maderna in the cities of Rome, Vienna, and Salzburg. Additionally, Wilbrandt worked in Berlin for about three years for both Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic.

Career

In 1980, Wilbrandt founded the Berlin Chamber Academy, a forty-piece orchestra originally formed from players of the Berlin Philharmonic with whom he recorded a Mozart Series for RCA Victor.
Alongside international conducting activities and collaborations with orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic and the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, Wilbrandt became increasingly focused on his own musical projects and recordings. His personal works were focused particularly in the fields of avant-garde and electronic music, which led to experimentation with multimedia content and new forms of musical presentation.
One of Wilbrandt's first major projects was the creation of a fusion of acoustic orchestral playing, digital and electronic instruments, and sounds entitled "THE ELECTRIC V", which was an approach to Vivaldi's concert cycle [The The Four Seasons (Vivaldi)|Four Seasons (Vivaldi)|The Four Seasons]. The first edition of "THE ELECTRIC V" was released in 1984 in twenty countries. Wilbrandt wrote, directed, and produced "The Electric V." between the years of 1987 and 1990, which was released exclusively on CD-Video.
Wilbrandt contributed music to the soundtrack of Oliver Stone's film Natural Born Killers.

Works and releases (selection)

Performances