Sieglinde Ahrensaus modern

Sieglinde Ahrens (* 19 February 1936 in Berlin) is a German organist and university lecturer.

Life

Sieglinde Ahrens studied at the Berlin Academy of Music, formerly the Royal Academy of Music in Berlin. It was reestablished after 1945 and is now part of the Universität der Künste. She studied composition under Boris Blacher, who was its director from 1953 to 1970. Her father Joseph Ahrens, himself a composer and cathedral organist, taught her organ, improvisation and Gregorian chant. He was professor of church music at the Hochschule für Musik Berlin from 1945 to 1969 and its deputy director from 1954 to 1958, from which Sieglinde Ahrens graduated with an organ diploma with honors in 1958. Since she grew up in the West Sector of the Allies (West Berlin), she was able to travel freely and thus continue her studies in Paris. These led her to the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique with Darius Milhaud and Olivier Messiaen. There she received the “Premier Prix” in 1959 in the class of Olivier Messiaen. She later co-authored the book ‘Das Orgelwerk Messiaen’ with Hans-Dieter Möller and Almut Rössler. In which they published a summary of all Messiaen’s works, with a preface.

From 1950 to 1956 she was organist at the Salvator Church in Berlin-Schmargendorf. So did her father, who was organist there from 1945 to 1957. In 1962 she was appointed as a lecturer for organ at the Folkwang Hochschule in Essen and in 1970 she became professor for organ at the same university. In 1964 she received the Nordrhein-Westfalen State Prize for Music.

Sieglinde Ahrens became known through her concert activities in Germany and abroad as well as through radio and CD recordings, including premiere recordings of the organ works of Joseph Ahrens and Petr Eben.
Author: Janek v. Kaler
Source Wiki: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sieglinde_AhrensSource UdK: The history of the UdK