Composer and pedagogue, born in Zittau (Saxony) / At the age of ten, Rainer Lischka first received accordion and later piano lessons. After graduating from high school in 1960, he began studying music education at the Academy of Music Carl Maria von Weber Dresden. Lischka studied piano with Theo Other and Wolfgang Plehn. Optionally, he received composition lessons from Manfred Weiss. In 1962 he chose composition as the first major subject. His teachers were Johannes Paul Thilman (composition), Günter Hörig (arrangement) and Conny Odd (stage music). The “cross-genre composing and improvising” played from the beginning an essential role in the artistic work of Lischka. He graduated in 1966 and completed a three-year compositional apprenticeship with Johannes Paul Thilman. From 1969 to 1971 he received the Mendelssohn scholarship. In the years 1970 to 2007 Rainer Lischka taught composition and composition / ear training at the Dresden Academy of Music. At the same place of work he was appointed professor of composition / arranging in 1992.
Lischka's compositions are strongly rhythmic and often seem very lively and dancing. Especially in his works for children and adolescents shows his sense of humor. For him, “entertaining and lightness,” which are often considered superficial in serious music, are “desirable, albeit difficult to produce, artistic qualities.” George Gershwin and Leonard Bernstein are often used to describe the music of Rainer Lischka: “At the height of contemporary compositional technique, Lischka has a unique interpretation of jazz impulses and various rhythmic-dance elements reminiscent of Gershwin and Bernstein Sound language developed, the performers and listeners alike joy, which has become quite rare in new music.” Impulses from jazz become clear in the “Nachtstück” for string quartet and percussion, premiered in 1997 in the Gobelinsaal of the Dresden Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, a result of close cooperation with jazz musician Günter “Baby” Sommer.
In many works Rainer Lischka pursues not least “music pedagogic intentions”. One focus of his compositional work is choral music for children. Among his most successful pieces is “The Voices of Animals” (1972). This is a four-part, artistic choral movement, which is still sung worldwide today. For his children's choir compositions on nursery rhymes and texts by Alfred Könner, Heinz Kahlau and Heinz Günter Behnert, he received first prizes from the broadcasters OIRT 1974 in Budapest, 1976 in Berlin and 1980 in Warsaw. With the children's choir of the Dresdner Philharmonie and its director Jürgen Becker there was a long-term, productive cooperation. But he also created choir compositions in cooperation with the Berlin Radio Children's Choir, the Children and Youth Choir of the City of Halle (Saale) and the Mädchenkantorei Basel in conjunction with the Raschèr Saxophone Quartet. Several of his chamber music and orchestral works were premiered by the Staatskapelle Dresden and the Dresdner Philharmonie, such as the orchestral piece and commissioned work “Akzente” (UA 1984), the “Concerto for Trombone and Orchestra” (UA 1990) and the “Tresillo”. Concertino “for trumpet and chamber orchestra (UA 2001). The compositions of Rainer Lischka were heard in the USA, Poland, Hungary, Finland, Japan, China, Brazil, Austria and Switzerland.
Rainer Lischka is a member of the German Composers' Association and the Saxon Music Association. He lives and works in Dresden. (Wikipedia)