Nico Sauer (born November 9, in
Munich
Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...
) is a German
composer
A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music.
Etymology and def ...
,
performance art
Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...
ist and
multimedia artist
Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms, such as writing, audio, images, animations, or video, into a single presentation. This is in contrast to tradition ...
.
Life and education
Nico Sauer studied
composition
Composition or Compositions may refer to:
Arts and literature
*Composition (dance), practice and teaching of choreography
* Composition (language), in literature and rhetoric, producing a work in spoken tradition and written discourse, to include ...
with
Wolfgang Rihm
Wolfgang Rihm (; 13 March 1952 – 27 July 2024) was a German composer of contemporary classical music and an academic teacher based in Karlsruhe. He was an influential post-war European composer, as "one of the most original and independent mus ...
and Markus Hechtle (BA,
University of Music Karlsruhe, 2010–2015),
Michael Jarrell
Michael Jarrell (born 8 October 1958) is a Swiss composer and academic teacher, whose operas, such as ''Cassandre'', have been performed internationally.
Life
Born in Geneva, Jarrell studied at the Geneva Conservatoire, and later with Klaus H ...
(University of Music Geneva 2012–2013),
Manos Tsangaris
Manos Tsangaris (born 8 December 1956) is a German composer, musician, sound art installation and performance artist, and a poet.
Life
Born in Düsseldorf, Tsangaris studied at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln from 1976 to 1983 composit ...
and Franz Martin Olbrisch (MA,
Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber
The Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber (or Dresden University of Music Carl Maria von Weber; also/formerly known as Dresden Conservatory or Dresden Royal Conservatory) is a university school of music, university of music in Dresden, ...
, 2015–2018).
During his education, his work was exposed to audiences in Germany,
Spain
Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...
,
France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
,
Italy
Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...
,
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
and
Russia
Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
.
Work
Nico Sauer's work combines instrumental and electronic music, video art, performance art and theater. He seeks artistic antagonists which are supposed to endanger a perception of art to a degree at which a new perception is made possible. The artist as a social sculpture plays an important role in the presentation and communication of his work.
In ''NeueMusik24-TV'' and on ''NeueMusik24.de,'' music is reduced to a literary form of sound ideas which are marketed and communicated as anti-capitalist products.
''Deutsch-Afrika'' (2014, National Theatre Karlsruhe) is a critical introspective on the contemporary music scene and European supremacy and colonialism.
In ''Composing Life'' (2015, Karlsruhe,
Essen
Essen () is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and Dortmund, as well as ...
) Sauer performed a motivational coach, preaching the liberating power of contemporary music, a Millennial grotesque of
Joseph Beuys
Joseph Heinrich Beuys ( ; ; 12 May 1921 – 23 January 1986) was a German artist, teacher, performance artist, and Aesthetics, art theorist whose work reflected concepts of humanism and sociology. With Heinrich Böll, , Caroline Tisdall, Rober ...
.
''Love Me '' (2016,
German Hygiene Museum, Dresden) is a concert-installation on artistic identity, reproduction and masquerade, involving over a hundred clones of the composer and a super slow motion version of an
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977) was an American singer and actor. Referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Elvis Presley, one of the most significant cultural figures of the ...
song.
''Salary Music'' (2016, ZeitPunkt,
Osaka
is a Cities designated by government ordinance of Japan, designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the List of cities in Japan, third-most populous city in J ...
) is a series of 'invisible pieces' to be performed in public spaces and everyday life situations.
''Lab 317'' (National Theatre Stuttgart, 2017) is a performative theatre-installation that picks up the discourse on European cultural centralism by claiming to breed a super-race of musical geniuses.
''wwwwwwwf'' (Sprechsaal Berlin, La FDP Paris, 2018) is the performed artistic encounter of Tanya Wenczel (
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...
) and Sauer in a trans-humanistic wrestling match.
With ''Taxi Boat Nico'' (Berlin, 2019) Sauer founded Berlin's first private water way transportation enterprise, a disguised series of artistic advertising campaigns and real-life performances on the questions of being and living as a contemporary artist.
In 2020, he co-founded the non-profit production organization ''bigger space'' Isabell Ohst and Vincent Wikström, where he is working in artistic direction and production. In 2020, ''bigger space'' produced a music podcast named ''Musikmusikmusik'' (in German) in which composers, musicians and performers talk about their favorite music. In 2021, ''bigger space'' is realizing a virtual festival on the moon, which is premiered in summer '21.
Since 2020, he is frequently working in
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
and
Strasbourg
Strasbourg ( , ; ; ) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est Regions of France, region of Geography of France, eastern France, in the historic region of Alsace. It is the prefecture of the Bas-Rhin Departmen ...
.
Works (selection)
* ''Der barhändige Wanderer singt in der Anwesenheit des Diebes'', Ensemble piece, 2014
* Suite für Snare and 128 instruments, Solo for snare drum and electronics, 2013
* ''Deutsch-Afrika 2014'', Chamber opera with electronics, voices und computer voices. Commissioned by the
National Theatre Karlsruhe and the Hoepfner Foundation, 2014.
* Composing Life, performance, Essen, Karlsruhe, 2015.
* ''Labor 317'', Music theater,
Staatstheater Stuttgart
The Staatstheater Stuttgart (Stuttgart State Theatre) is a theatre with three locations, Staatsoper Stuttgart, Oper Stuttgart (Opera Stuttgart), Stuttgart Ballet, Stuttgarter Ballett (Stuttgart Ballet), and Schauspiel Stuttgart (Stuttgart Drama ...
, Labor Nord. Commissioned by SKAM, 2017
* ''LOVE ME'', Music theater,
Deutsches Hygiene-Museum
The German Hygiene Museum () is a medical museum in Dresden, Germany. It conceives itself today as a "forum for science, culture and society". It is a popular venue for events and exhibitions, and is among the most visited museums in Dresden, wit ...
Dresden, El Perro Andaluz, commissioned by Ernst-Werner von Siemens Foundation, 2016
*''On Yellow Pyramids And Learning To Fly Them'', Solo Performance, white noise, Stuttgart, Agora, Berlin. Commissioned by SKAM, 2017.
* ''The AcouSuit'' '','' Installation/Performance''.'' Commissioned by Spor Festival, Aarhus, Denmark
*''Teleform Centrum''. Commissioned by Festival Musica, Stasbourg, France, 2018
*''Accelerando','' UA mit Isao Nakamura. Commissioned by the German Nation Radio, 2015
*
Reel B Music'' Mini compositions on Instagram Reels, since 2021
* Ears of a Composer, Monthly radio show on Cashmere Radio, Berlin, since 2020
*''Moonbreaker 2121,'' a music festival on the moon. As composer and artistic director. Funded by Musikfonds, 2021
Awards and scholarships
* 2012–2018 Scholarship of German sponsorship organization for the academically gifted
*2013 Scholarship of the Hoepfner Foundation Karlsruhe
*2014
*2016 YourTurn Award for YouTube Creators
Writings
* ''Qu'est-ce que c'est B-Musique? Vorbei an einer neuen
Musikphilosophie''.
Positionen, Berlin, 2020
Ausgabe #125 ''Kunst > Wirklichkeit?''*
Was ist situatives Komponieren?'. Master-Arbeit im
Studiengang Komposition, 2018, Berlin.
References
External links
*
Webseite der bigger space
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sauer, Nico
1986 births
German conceptual artists
German contemporary classical composers
German electronic musicians
German opera composers
Living people
German male opera composers