“In hybrid sound spaces, instrumental, vocal, electronic, scenic and visual, analog and digital can meet in inhospitable density and intensity. But something is different from many emphatically ‘immersive’ products of contemporary music, which nowadays not infrequently fall prey to a certain superficiality. Something in Hübner’s restless mélange of immediate expressivity and associative reality-blinding seems more urgent, even poetic, than elsewhere. Perhaps this is because ‘theater’ has such great signifi­cance for Hübner, not in the sense of genre and urban institution, but as a principally open space for artistic action and experimentation. And this space is usually not a virtual one, but a space of confronta­tion … a confrontation, admittedly, that works primarily with hints and intangibles.”

– Dirk Wieschollek, nmz 12/2019

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Ole Hübner (1993) studied composition in Hanover (with Benjamin Lang and Joachim Heintz) and Cologne (with Johannes Schöllhorn and Michael Beil); this was followed by a master’s degree at the Giessen Institute for Applied Theater Studies (with Heiner Goebbels et al.). Ole attended several master classes, including the Tzlil Meudcan course with Chaya Czernowin and José María Sánchez-Verdú (Tel Aviv, 2016). 2022 Ole completed a postgraduate program in  Dresden (with Stefan Prins and Manos Tsangaris), which also included a guest semester in Oslo (with Trond Reinholdtsen et al.).

In permanent collaboration with Maria Huber and Jakob Boeckh (as the paranormal ϕeer group), Ole develops forms of experimental transdisciplinary co-authorship for sound/space-based performances. Ole has also been a permanent member of the music theatre collective The Navidsons (CH/D) since 2015 and regularly collaborates with artists such as Kapitolina Tcvetkova (FR/RUS, scenography/staging), Raphael Jacobs (NL/D, poetry/costume) or Johannes Schropp (D, choreography/performance). Ole has been involved in inter/transdisciplinary productions such as The Navidson Records (Munich Biennale / Bern Theatre 2016), Orpheus Moments (Venice Biennale 2017), вепрь и рыба (Stanislavski and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Academic Music Theatre Moscow 2018), Revolutions Per Minute (Gallus Theater Frankfurt 2019), Ødipus REC. (Gare du Nord Basel / Tojo Theater Bern 2020), Staying Broken (the paranormal ϕeer group + Neo Hülcker; Elbphilharmonie Hamburg 2020), Befriending Ghosts – Digital Hauntings (the paranormal ϕeer group; Volksbühne Berlin digital / HAU4 @ Performing Arts Festival Berlin 2021), ALICE (Espace K Strasbourg 2021 / Theater Eurodistrict Baden Alsace / Konzerthaus Berlin 2022), Fairytales Of Economic Growth (Opéra Orchestre National Montpellier 2021), Geht dann gleich los (HELLERAU – Europäisches Zentrum der Künste Dresden 2021), Loss of Signal (of course I still love you) (the paranormal ϕeer group, MS Stubnitz Hamburg / Next Level Festival for Games Essen 2021 / BAM! Berliner Festival für aktuelles Musiktheater 2022), and ϕeerroom (the paranormal ϕeer group, SPARK Festival Cologne / 49h Stimme X Hamburg 2022). The opera opera, opera, opera! revenants and revolutions (libretto: Thomas Köck) was created for the Munich Biennale 2020 but has remained unperformed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Ole is also committed to concert music and has worked in this field with groups such as Klangforum Wien, Ensemble Modern, Decoder Ensemble, NAMES Ensemble, Ensemble Proton Bern, Arditti Quartet, Airborne Extended, as well as with numerous vocalists and solo instrumentalists. Music by Ole has been performed and broadcast in many countries in Europe, Asia and North America. Previous and planned CD projects include participation in the Decoder Ensemble’s BIG DATA album (Wergo, 2019) and trombonist Mikael Rudolfsson’s new solo album (2023), as well as a portrait album in the Edition Zeitgenössische Musik of the Deutscher Musikrat (Wergo, 2024/25). Ole’s complete works are published exclusively by Edition Juliane Klein, Berlin.

Since 2018 Ole has held teaching positions for composition and interdisciplinary projects at the University of Giessen and the Academy of Performing Arts Baden-Württemberg. As tutor and assistant teacher in the Dresden composition class, Ole led several music theater projects and gave main subject lessons. Ole has been curator of the Musik 21 Festival for contemporary music in Hanover and Lower Saxony since its 2021 edition. Awards and grants include the 63rd Composition Prize of the Federal State Capital of Stuttgart 2018, a commission prize at the composition competition of the impuls Festival Graz 2019, a residency scholarship to the Villa Aurora Los Angeles 2019, a federal scholarship to the Cité Internationale des Arts Paris 2019/20, the Bremen Composers Prize of the Landesmusikrat Bremen 2020, a residency scholarship to Künstlerhof Schreyahn 2022/23, and the Deutscher Musikautor*innenpreis 2023.

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Learn more in this portrait video produced in 2021 by the AVL Cultural Foundation: