Dieter Ammann


Dieter Ammann is a Swiss composer who plays bass guitar, trumpet, cornet, and keyboard.

Biography

He studied at the Academy for Music Education and Church Music in Lucerne and spent several semesters at the Swiss Jazz School in Bern. He has worked in improvised music. As a trumpet player, keyboardist and electric bassist he has played in the free funk band Donkey Kong's Multiscream since the early 1980s and as sideman with Marco Käppeli and other groups such as the international festivals in Cologne, Willisau, Antwerp, and Lugano.
Recordings and studio sessions brought him together with a diverse set of artists such as Eddie Harris, Peter Brötzmann, and Udo Lindenberg.
He studied theory and composition at the Music Academy of the City of Basel and took master classes with Wolfgang Rihm and Witold Lutosławski.
In the 1990s, Ammann's focus shifted to composition. He has received numerous national and international awards for his orchestral and chamber works. He won the Aargauer Kuratorium, the main prize at the International Composition Competition of the IBLA, a foundation based in New York. The Franz Liszt-Scholarship of the Weimar Cultural City of Europe Foundation awarded him first prize for young composers in Europe.
Ammann is currently Professor of Theory and Composition at the Lucerne School of Music.
In December 2010, Ammann and his wife Yolanda were made honorary citizens of the city of Zofingen.
His The Piano Concerto , a concerto for piano and orchestra, premiered at the London Proms in August 2019.

Awards