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Saunders, Rebecca (1967–) By Barden, Mark
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One of her generation’s foremost composers, Saunders was born into a musical family (both parents were freelance musicians) on 19 December 1967 and raised in Brixton, a suburb in southeast London. Upon completing her bachelor’s degree in violin and composition (with Nigel Osborne) at the University of Edinburgh, Saunders moved to Germany in 1991 and, abandoning violin, dedicated herself fully to compositional studies with Wolfgang Rihm. She returned to Edinburgh for her doctorate in 1994, permanently relocating to Berlin in 1997. Among her many awards are a DAAD fellowship (1991–1994), the Busoni Förderpreis from the Berlin Academy of the Arts (1995), an Ernst von Siemens Förderpreis (1996), the Paul Hindemith Prize (2003), and the GEMA Deutscher Musikautorenpreis (2010). She was Composer-in-Residence at the Konzerthaus in Dortmund from 2005 to 2006 and Capell-Compositeur at the Staatskapelle Dresden from 2009 to 2010. Following guest professorships in Dresden and Cologne, she was appointed Professor of Composition at Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien in Hanover in 2012. She is frequently invited to give masterclasses and workshops at prominent music schools and international festivals (Darmstadt Summer Courses, Oberlin Conservatory, impuls academy, Ostrava New Music Days, Hochschule für Musik Freiburg, and others).