Helga Pogatschar

In a field dominated by men, young composer Helga Pogatschar is one of the few women who have gained some success as a composer and interpreter of her music. Her work covers a wide range of styles, from songs for piano and voice, music for dance performances and video/computer graphic installations, a requiem, commercial jingles, music for children, and some music that stands outside every genre. This seems to be an extensive output for a composer of her age. As the title of a documentary film dealing with her life and work tells, she is Hungry for Music. Helga Pogatschar studied classical piano at the Munich Music University from 1986 till 1991. Her education was followed by composition studies in classical and film/TV field. She also spent two years as a guest student at the Studio for Electronic/Acoustic Music in Göteborg, Sweden. While still a student, she saw the premiere of some of her works, like the music for the video-installation Lost in Space in 1992, a piece for two singers and electronics, where she worked with Ernst Horn, musician and composer of darkwave band Deine Lakaien. Next came Drain, a floor projection for five singers, percussion, and electronics. A quite spectacular thing was the Spider's Project in which Helga Pogatschar worked with a video artist. In a tent there was a cube with a great number of exotic spiders that slowly occupied the tent to build their nets, projected by video pictures and accompanied by the music (and crawling on musicians and audience). Besides her own music, Helga Pogatschar is engaged in the head of ADevantgarde, a group that organizes a festival every two years and in Musica Femina, a association that gives a forum to female musicians. In 1995, she returned to her old university as an instructor for electronic sound...