Academy
Coaches 2027
Carola Bauckholt
Composition, Coach
Carola Bauckholt was born in Krefeld in 1959. After working at the Theater am Marienplatz (TAM) in Krefeld for several years, she studied at the Cologne University of Music with Mauricio Kagel from 1978 to 1984. In 1985 she founded the Thürmchen Verlag with Caspar Johannes Walter, and in 1991 the Thürmchen Ensemble.
She has received numerous scholarships and awards and has performed internationally, e.g. a portrait concert with the Ensemble Dal Niente in Chicago in summer 2022, in 2023 as the portrait composer at the Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik and in 2024 a portrait concert in New York, presented by the International Contemporary Ensemble. Her double CD with orchestral works was nominated for the German Record Critics' Award (Maria de Alvear World Edition) and won the 2025 Abbiati Prize for Recordings in Cremona. Also in 2025, she was awarded the Louis Spohr Prize by the city of Braunschweig. In 2013 she was elected as a member of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin, since 2021 she is Director of the Music Section. In 2015, she was appointed professor of composition/specializing in contemporary music theater at the Anton Bruckner Private University in Linz, Austria, and retired in 2024. In 2020 she was elected as a member of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts.
A central moment in Carola Bauckholt's works is the reflection on the phenomenon of perception and understanding. Her compositions often combine elements of visual art, music theatre and concert music. She likes to make use of noisy sounds, which are often produced with unusual means and are not incorporated into a predetermined compositional grid, but are observed and carried on in their free development.
