Stefan Wirth

Stefan Wirth is a composer and pianist. His catalogue includes around thirty works for various formations, ranging from solo pieces to opera. He has received commissions from the Munich Chamber Orchestra, the Basel Chamber Orchestra, the Basel Sinfonietta, the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Collegium Novum Zürich, Ensemble Contrechamps, the NEXUS Reed Quintet, Ensemble of Nomads, Soyuz 21, Ensemble Proton, Klangforum Heidelberg, Ensemble Makrokosmos, Ensemble ö!, Camerata Variabile, Ensemble Aequatuor, the Bern Chamber Orchestra, Konzerttheater Bern, as well as from WDR for the Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik, Deutschlandfunk, the Poetic Song Days in Weimar, the Ruhrtriennale, and the Lucerne Festival.

His opera Girl with a Pearl Earring (Opernhaus Zürich) was named “Opera Production of the Year 2022” by Opernwelt magazine, alongside Peter Eötvös’ Sleepless.

As a pianist, he focuses primarily on contemporary music and has worked, as a member of Ensemble CNZ (Zurich) and Ensemble Contrechamps (Geneva), with conductors and composers such as Heinz Holliger, Pierre Boulez, Beat Furrer, Enno Poppe and Rebecca Saunders. Since 2025, he has been a permanent member of Trio Accanto (with Marcus Weiß, saxophone, and Christian Dierstein, percussion).

As part of the four-piano ensemble Gershwin Piano Quartet, he has performed at the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, the Ruhr Piano Festival, the KKL Lucerne, Tonhalle Zürich, Konzerthaus Dortmund, the National Palace of Culture in Sofia (Bulgaria), the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing (China), and the Sala São Paulo (Brazil).

In the theatre world, he has collaborated frequently with Anna-Sophie Mahler, Christoph Marthaler and Frank Castorf, and has appeared at the Venice Biennale, the Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Volksbühne Berlin.

Stefan Wirth received his musical education at the Zurich University of the Arts, the New England Conservatory (Boston), Indiana University Bloomington, the Tanglewood Music Center (Lenox, MA, USA), and the Britten-Pears School in Aldeburgh, England. His composition teachers included George Benjamin, Oliver Knussen, Colin Matthews, Michael Gandolfi and Lee Hyla; as a pianist, he studied with Leonard Hokanson, Stephen Drury, Hadassa Schwimmer and Irwin Gage.

Since 2019, he has been Professor of Classical Piano and Interpretation in Contemporary Music at the Lucerne University of Music.