Beat Furrer was born in Schaffhausen in 1954 and received his first training (piano) at the music school there. After moving to Vienna in 1975, he studied conducting with Otmar Suitner and composition with Roman Haubenstock Ramati at the University of Music and Performing Arts. In 1985 he founded the Klangforum Wien, which he headed until 1992 and which he has been associated with as a conductor ever since. Commissioned by the Vienna State Opera, he wrote his f irst opera, “Die Blinden”, and his second opera, “Narcissus”, premiered in 1994 at the steirischer herbst at the Graz Opera. In 1996 he was composer in residence at the Lucerne Music Festival. In 2001 the music theater “Begehren” was premiered in Graz, in 2003 the opera “invocation” in Zurich and in 2005 the multi-award winning audio theater “FAMA” in Donaueschingen. Furrer has been full professor of composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Graz from 1991 to 2023. At the end of the 1990s, together with Ernst Kovacic, he founded “impuls” as an international ensemble and composer academy for contemporary music in Graz. From 2006 to 2009 he held a visiting professorship for composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Frankfurt. In 2004 he received the Music Prize of the City of Vienna, and since 2005 he has been a member of the Academy of Arts in Berlin. In 2006 he was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale for “FAMA”. In 2010, his music theater work “Wüstenbuch” premiered at the Theater Basel. In 2014 he received the great Austrian State Prize. His opera “la bianca notte / the bright night” based on texts by Dino Campana was premiered in Hamburg in May 2015. Since the 1980s, Furrer has created a broad repertoire ranging from solo and chamber music to works for ensemble, choir, orchestra and opera. In January 2019, his new opera “Violetter Schnee” (Violet Snow), to a libretto by Händl Klaus and based on a template by Vladimir Sorokin, was premiered at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin. In August 2024, he was awarded the Roche Commission as part of the Lucerne Festival. In 2025, the opera “Das grosse Feuer” (libretto by Thomas Stangl after the novel “Eisejuaz” by Sara Gallardo) received its world premiere at the Opernhaus Zürich. His second piano concerto was also premiered with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande conducted by Jonathan Nott and Francesco Piemontesi as the soloist. Beat Furrer received the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize 2018, he is a member of the Board of Trustees for the New Music Network appointed by the German Federal Cultural Foundation.
