Johanna Doderer

The composer Johanna Doderer was born in Bregenz in 1969. She studied composition and music theory in Graz with Beat Furrer and then in Vienna with Erich Urbanner, as well as film and media composition with Klaus Peter Sattler.

Johanna Doderer writes music that is immediately moving. She moves in her own unmistakable sound language away from the usual contemporary music. The artist has collaborated with excellent musicians for many years and her music is performed in the most important concert halls worldwide. These compositions are the expression of a non-conformist lifestyle that is permeated by the search for the essential. Among the 10 operas that have been commissioned in recent years are two short operas and a children's opera. Johanna Doderer is the first woman whose commissioned opera was premiered at the Vienna State Opera (Fatima, oder von den mutigen Kindern, 2015).

Her operas have been performed at the Landestheater Innsbruck, Wiener Festwochen, Theater an der Wien, Museumsquartier Wien, Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz Munich, Oper Erfurt, Mecklenburgisches Staatstheater Schwerin, Staatsoper Stuttgart and Komische Oper Berlin, among others. The third opera is currently being created as a commissioned work for the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz under the directorship of Josef E. Köpplinger. This work, based on a libretto by Peter Turrini, will premiere in Munich in the fall of 2025.

Another of the artist's compositional focuses is on chamber music, orchestral music and, in particular, sacred music. In 2024, her mass for choir and orchestra was premiered by the Vienna Hofmusikkapelle. It was the first mass by a woman to be performed in this famous 500-year-old venue.

In recent years, the composer has received the Ernst Krenek Prize, the highest composition award of the City of Vienna, among other awards. Johanna Doderer currently lives about an hour away from Vienna in the peace and seclusion of the Schmidatal. Since 2018, she has been the director of the annual “hören:Sitzendorf” festival in the Schmidatal in June, which has been running under the festival title “Das klingende Schloss” since 2024. (www.dasklingendeschloss.at).

Her works have been published by Musikverlag Doblinger Wien, Universal Edition Wien and by her own publishing house.