Mike Svoboda

Mike Svoboda – born 1960 on the island of Guam, grew up in Chicago and came to Germany with the help of a BMI Award to Young Composers in 1982. His eleven years as trombonist with Karlheinz Stockhausen during the 80s and 90s proved to be of eminent importance for Svoboda's musical development. Including the collaboration with Stockhausen and other composers such as Peter Eötvös, Helmut Lachenmann, Wolfgang Rihm, Martin Smolka, David Lang, and Frank Zappa, Svoboda has premiered over 400 works for trombone at festivals throughout the world.

Major festivals have invited him to be artist or composer-in-residence. Often involved in his works as a soloist or with his own Mike Svoboda Ensemble, he composes across the borders between popular and classical music, high culture and entertainment, combining - through the use of text and various musical styles - both traditional and avant-garde.

Numerous CDs, mainly for the WERGO label, document Svoboda's art both as an interpreter and composer. In 2008 he was awarded the Praetorius-Prize for Innovation in Music from the German government, because of, according to the jury, the "influence and recognition his concepts and ideas have had on the development of music and its performance".