Benjamin Scheuer’s music is all about sensuality and humor. Both his staged and concert pieces contain theatrical elements and often evoke an atmosphere of darkly colored playfulness. In his works, found objects from daily life are frequently being presented onstage, either live or sampled.

Scheuer doesn’t consider himself to be a composer of electronic music, but rather focuses on a world of “live-electrics” in which sounds are produced with the easiest and most economic means possible. His main interest is the human being playing music with its individual characteristic and its tendency to fail whilst technology just serves a as tool.   

His piece, Trittbrettfahrer, will receive its world premiere at MICF, performed by Resident Ensemble Alarm Will Sound.

Trittbrettfahrer, Scheuer says, “is full of weird imitations of sounds from somewhere beyond ‘music.’ The musicians use the effects to build some sort of weird language that might not be fully functional but is somehow universally understandable – like ‘elemental cries.’”

Scheuer, who works as a freelance composer, studied in Hamburg and Karlsruhe, Germany with Fredrik Schwenk and Wolfgang Rihm and wrote a dissertation on Georges Aperghis’ théâtre musical in Freiburg.

Regarding his attendance of MICF, he says, “It’s been quite a while since I’ve been to the US. It was long before the start of pandemic. I’m really glad that I can come and get to know Missouri, a state I have never been to before.”

For more information about Scheuer and his music, visit www.benjaminscheuer.de