Torsten Rasch
TORSTEN RASCH - Original Music and Audio producer
Torsten Rasch was born in Dresden in 1965. He began taking piano lessons at the age of six and from 1974-82 was a member of Dresden’s renowned Kreuzchor, before going on to study composition and piano at the city’s Carl Maria von Weber University. In 1990 he emigrated to Japan and established himself as a successful composer for film and television, completing over forty to date.
In 2002 Rasch received a commission from the Dresdner Sinfoniker. The resultant work – a 65-minute song cycle based on the music and lyrics of German industrial metal band Rammstein entitled Mein Herz brennt – premiered to great critical acclaim in Dresden and Berlin before being revived at the Helsinki Musica Nova Festival. A Deutsche Grammophon recording of the work (featuring René Pape, Katharina Thalbach and the Dresden Sinfoniker conducted by John Carewe) was awarded Best World Premiere Recording at the Echo Classical Awards in Munich. In 2006, Rasch was commissioned by London’s ICA to collaborate with the Pet Shop Boys on a soundtrack for the silent film Battleship Potemkin and a live, screened performance took place in London’s Trafalgar Square.
In Germany Rasch’s first opera, Rotter, based on a play by East German dissident Thomas Brasch, was commissioned by Köln Opera and received its world premiere in February 2008.
The Duchess of Malfi, Rasch’s ground-
breaking second opera, was premiered in London in 2010 by its commissioners
English National Opera and the experimental theatre group Punchdrunk. The performances sold out within hours,
and contributed to ENO’s Audience
Development award from the Royal
Philharmonic Society in 2011.
FILM (a Selection)
2021 The Zurich Affair – Dir: Jens Neubert
2010 Hunter’s Bride – Dir: Jens Neubert
2005 The Last Supper – Dir: Osamu Fukutani
1996 Carnival of Wolves – Dir: Takeshi Watanabe
1995 Score – Dir: Atsushi Muroga
