Torsten Rasch

Torsten Rasch was born in Dresden in 1965. He rose to prominence with Mein Herz Brennt, an orchestral song-cycle inspired by the band Rammstein and commissioned by the Dresdner Sinfoniker, which received acclaim worldwide and a Deutsche Grammophon recording. This led to collaboration with the Pet Shop Boys on a soundtrack for the silent film Battleship Potemkin.

His early musical education was as a chorister in the famous Dresdner Kreuzchor, but since then he has been particularly active in the fields of orchestral music and opera. An orchestral commission for the LPO and Kurt Masur produced Wouivres (2006); and Le Serpent Rouge (2006) shone at its first performance with the BBC SO. His first opera, Rotter (2007), based on a play by East German dissident Thomas Brasch, was commissioned by Cologne Opera and directed by Katharina Thalbach. His second opera, The Duchess of Malfi, premiered to sell-out audiences in 2010 by English National Opera and immersive-theatre company Punchdrunk. The opera has since been performed at the Städtische Theater, Chemnitz.

Rasch’s most recent project is A Foreign Field, a major choir and orchestra commission from the Three Choirs Festival to mark the centenary of World War One.

©Faber Music Ltd, 2014