Schöning, Klaus

SchÖning, Klaus, German radio producer and writer on music; b. Rastenburg, Feb. 24, 1936. After univ. studies in Munich, Göttingen, and Berlin, he worked in the theater. In 1961 he began a lengthy association with the Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) of Cologne, where he is producer, director, and chief ed. of the WDR Studio for Acoustic Art, an international workshop for audio art and research that he established. He commissioned and produced over 1,000 radio broadcasts for the WDR and other international radio stations; was a pioneer in the reorientation of the German Hörspiel in the late 1960s, his main programs being “New Hörspiel,” “Composers as Hörspielmakers,” and “Ars Acustica.” Among the composers from whom he has commissioned works are John Cage, Alvin Curran, Pauline Oliveros, Alison Knowles, Charles Amirkhanian, Jackson Mac Low, and Joan La Barbara. With support from the WDR and the Goethe Inst., he also developed a transcontinental link for acoustic art, Acustica International; in 1985 he was artistic director of the first Acustica International Festival (Cologne), and, in 1990, of the Sound Art Festival and second Acustica International Festival (N.Y. and Montreal). He was the producer of the first Satellite Soundsculptures with EarbridgeKöln -San Francisco (1987) and Soundbridge Köln -Kyoto (1993) by Bill Fontana. In 1993 he was curator of sound installation with radio compositions by John Cage at the Venice Biennale and in 1993–94 at the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Francisco and the Guggenheim Museum in N.Y. He has won numerous awards for his productions, including the Prix Italia, Prix Futura, Karl-Sczuka-Preis, Hörspielpreis der Kriegsblinden, and Premio Ondas; in 1983 he received the Berliner Kunstpreis for Film/Radio/TV and in 1993 the Medienkunstpreis of the Zentrum für Kunst- und Medientechnologie in Karlsruhe. He also lectured extensively in Germany, France, and the U.S.; was curator of the exhibition “American Audio Art on WDR” at the Whitney Museum of Art in N.Y. (1990). Among his numerous publications are John Cage: Roaratorio: Ein irischer Circus über Finnegans Wake (1982), Geschichte und Typologie des Hörspiels (7 vols., 1988–90), and 1. Acustica International: Komponisten als Hörspielmacher (1990); he also produced the CD-anthology Ars Acustica (1992).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire