Endowed Guest Professorship Composition
George Lewis comes to the HfMDK in 2025/26 as Endowed Visiting Professor of Composition for three work phases. Welcome!
He is a successful improvising musician, a pioneer of computer music and one of the most respected experts in the field of artificial intelligence, and as an author he is a pioneer of decolonization: George Lewis. In his work, the US composer, trombonist, scientist and author has most recently dealt with historical figures of the African diaspora.
George Lewis, who is coming to the HfMDK for three work phases in 2025/26, is also a multifaceted musicologist and successful teacher. He currently teaches as Edwin H. Case Professor of American Music at Columbia University, is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy and a member of the Akademie der Künste Berlin. Lewis' other honors include the Doris Duke Artist Award (2019) and fellowships from the MacArthur Foundation (2002) and the Guggenheim Foundation (2015).
George Lewis has been a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) since 1971. His works in the fields of electronic and computer-based music, multimedia installation and notated and improvised formats are performed by ensembles worldwide. As a pioneer of interactive computer music, Lewis develops programs that improvise together with human musicians.
Lewis' book "A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music" (University of Chicago Press, 2008) received the American Book Award and the American Culture Award from the American Musicological Society. Lewis is also co-editor of "The Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies" (2016). Lewis holds honorary doctorates from the University of Edinburgh, New College of Florida, the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University, among others.
The IzM is looking forward to working with George Lewis, whose extraordinarily varied life, multifaceted work, socio-political commitment and esprit as an artist and person can provide a strong impetus for students and teachers at the HfMDK. In three work islands, he will collaborate with various areas of the HfMDK, such as the MA BigBand, the IEMA, numerous instrumental students and the composition class.
1. Work phase: New Music Decolonization 20.10.-25.10.2025
including an inaugural lecture on "New Music Decolonization in Eight Difficult Steps" (20.10.2025, 19.30h), lecture-rehearsals with instrumentalists from the HfMDK and the IEMA, "Artistic Insights" - workshop discussion with the MA BigBand and a colloquium with the composition class.
2.Work phase: Interaction with AI and creative machines 20-25.4.2026
including a panel discussion with George Lewis and Christian Grüny (20.4.2025), block seminars and further lecture rehearsals as well as first showings at the shortcut on 21.4.2026 at the HfMDK
3. Work phase: Improvisation 8.6.-13.6.2026
Intensive workshop with IEMA / MA Big Band, portrait concert with HfMDK students (11.6.2026, FrankfurtLab)
Guest students are welcome at selected workshops! Registration and information at the IzM at assistenz-izm@hfmdk-frankfurt.de
Strengthening the contemporary profile: About the endowed guest professorship
Since 2019, the HfMDK has established a unique endowed guest professorship with the help of the HfMDK Foundation, which was founded in 2016: Renowned composers come to Frankfurt for a year at a time to work with students from all departments. The program includes workshops with instrumentalists and students of composition and the performing arts as well as lectures and public performances, discussions and symposia.
The Foundation for the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts contributes to the good development of the university and the excellent reputation of the HfMDK with its first project "Endowed Guest Professorship for Composition", which is comparable to the Endowed Guest Professorship for Poetics at Goethe University, and enriches the educational program. The university's existing good framework conditions in the areas of teaching, interpretation, networking and cooperation will be usefully expanded with this endowed guest professorship and will strengthen the contemporary profile and international appeal of the HfMDK.
in 2019, Brian Ferneyhough was the first guest professor, in 2020/21 the Italian composer Lucia Ronchetti was in Frankfurt for three large project islands, in 2022/23 composer and inventor Koka Nikoladze worked with HfMDK students and teachers. in 2023/24, the Swiss collective blablabor with Annette Schmucki and Reto Friedmann were guests at the HfMDK. 2024/25 Liza Lim held the endowed guest professorship in composition. George Lewis will be at the HfMDK in 2025/26.
An initiative of the Institute for Contemporary Music IzM of the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts, supported by the Foundation for the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts (HfMDK Foundation)
