1936
born March 26 in Innsbruck, Tyrol
1955 – 61
studies at the Academy for Music and Performing Arts in Vienna (composition with Karl Schiske and Hanns Jelinek, piano with Grete Hinterhofer, conducting with Hans Swarowsky)
participation at the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik, Darmstadt, Germany (composition classes with Wolfgang Fortner, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Bruno Maderna)
1956
composition awards of the publishing house Doblinger and of the Österreichische Musikzeitschrift (Austrian Music Journal)
since 1961
instructor for score-playing at the Academy for Music and performing Arts in Vienna
1962
City of Vienna supportive award
1966
Award of the St. Hubert Festival (Belgium)
since 1968
is active as a conductor
since 1969
professor for composition and music theory at the Academy (now University) for Music and performing Arts, Vienna
1969 – 74
director of the twelve-tone seminar at the Vienna Music University
1980
composition award of the Provincial Capital Innsbruck
1982
appreciative award of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Art and Education
1984
City of Vienna Music Award
1986 – 89
director of the institute for electro-acoustics and experimental music at the Vienna Music University
1993
Province of Tyrol Music Award
2001
Republic of Austria Grand Silver Order of Merit, City of Vienna Gold Order of Merit

Together with composers such as Iván Eröd, Ingomar Grünauer, Gösta Neuwirth, Kurt Schwertsik and Otto M. Zykan, Erich Urbanner was one of the group of young musicians which formed itself in the mid-50s around the composer Karl Schiske, whose teaching activities at the Vienna Academy of Music formed an important counterpoint to the conservative circles which dominated Viennese musical life at that period. Similarly to his colleagues, the young Urbanner studied the techniques of that time's avant-garde, was influenced by the 2nd Viennese school and by his impressions gained at the Darmstadt Ferienkurse für Neue Musik. Among his dodecaphonic and serial works of the 1960s are for example the Five Pieces for violin and piano of 1961 (which show parallels to Anton Webern's Vier Stücke für Violine und Klavier, op. 7), the Adagio for piano (1966), and the orchestral work Theme, 19 Variations, and a Postlude (1968) which brings together once more all compositional techniques employed by Urbanner so far.
Beginning with Improvisation III for chamber ensemble (1969), Urbanner employed a freer idiom incorporating improvisatory elements (at first even with a newly developed notation, the Streckennotation, "distance notation"). In the Violin concerto (1971) and in the Double bass concerto (1973) the improvisatory character is enriched with elements of sound and is more clearly structured by a new emphasis on formal procedures. Following this development it became essential for Urbanner to leave ample room for melodic development beside rational structure. This and the re-thinking of tradi-tional formal schemes characterise for example the Retrospektiven for orchestra (1974/75; new version 1979) which contains, among other features, a funeral march that is reduced to its rhythm and a rondo with a ritornello that appears only once in its original version. In later works Urbanner also em-ploys elements of cluster technique and micropolyphony. To be able to reflect musical content from a new viewpoint he remains open for all new developments and considers them for possible use in his own oeuvre:
"In a time of the most varied stylistic movements, but also in a time of uncertainty of judging what is avant-garde and what is conservatism, it is important to realise that fewer innovations than ever can be made in the sphere of material; they have to be effected by the degree of assimilation through artistic, compositional means." (Erich Urbanner, 1993)
Several times Urbanner has dealt with larger forms. Noteworthy are especially the Requiem for soloists, chorus and orchestra (1975) with its expressive choral part written for the 175th anniversary celebrations of the Tyrolean fight for liberty, and the opera Ninive (1987) which was successfully produced in 1988 at the Tyrolean Landestheater.

Christian Heindl
Doblinger