Lisa Streich

The decisive impulse for Lisa Streich to become a composer was her encounter with Rebecca Saunder’s music. Born in Norra Råda, Sweden, in 1985, Streich studied composition and organ in Berlin, Stockholm, Salzburg, Paris and Cologne with teachers including Johannes Schöllhorn, Adriana Hölszky, Mauro Lanza and Margareta Hürholz. She received additional significant impulses in master classes with Chaya Czernowin, Brian Ferneyhough, Steven Takasugi and Beat Furrer. Now Streich is considered one of the most distinguished female contemporary composers and her concise personal language has gained her an international reputation.

Lisa Streich’s instrumental and vocal works are characterised by extremes, in particular extremes of articulation and tonal colouring within the borderlines of tone and noise. She regularly employs self-designed motorised machines producing sounds serving the purpose of de-subjectivising intonation which are based on rotating paper strips brought into contact with resonating strings: characteristic examples of these effects are demonstrated in the Piano Trio for violin, motorised violoncello and piano (2015), “Laster” for motorised piano and chamber orchestra (2019) and “OFELIA” for large ensemble, motorised piano and four loudspeakers (2024).

The content of Streich’s fragile tonal worlds frequently possesses a spiritual or religious quality. “PITÀ” for motorised violoncello and ensemble (2012/16) processes aspects of the flagellation and crucifixion; “AGNEL” for 12-voice choir, objects, boy soprano and electronics (2012) utilises fragments of the Latin mass liturgy; “SEGEL” for orchestra (2016) is focused on the deconstruction and harmonic filtering of already existing sacred music.

Streich’s works have been performed by internationally renowned musicians including the Quatuor Diotima, the ensemble recherche, the Ensemble intercontemporain, the Ensemble Musikfabrik, the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin and the Berliner Philharmoniker. Streich has received numerous awards such as the Busoni Sponsorship Award from the Akademie der Künste Berlin, the Villa Massimo Rome Prize and the Composer Prize from the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation in 2017. In 2020, Streich was awarded the first Claussen-Simon Composition Prize, in 2021 the Lilla Christ Johnson Composer’s Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music and the Heidelberg Women Artists’ Prize in 2022. In 2024, she was Composer in Residence at the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and the Lucerne Festival.

Lisa Streich lives on the Swedish island of Gotland.