- Austrian composer and violinist, he became director of the electronic studios of the Vienna Music Academy in 1960.
- In addition to composing, Cerha earned a reputation as an interpreter of the works of Alban Berg, Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern. This work included the completion of Alban Berg's unfinished three-act opera Lulu. Cerha orchestrated sections of the third act using Berg's notes as a reference. The opera was premiered by Pierre Boulez in Paris in 1979.
- Cerha and his wife Gertraud Cerha, a music historian, were founder members of the Joseph Marx Society in April 2006.
- In 2006 he was decorated with The Golden Lion of the Venice Music Biennale.
- From 1959 to 1988 Friedrich Cerha held a position at the Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts in Vienna, where he taught a class of composition, notation and interpretation of contemporary music from 1976 to 1988.
- He was an Austrian composer, conductor and music educator.
- He also became part of the Austrian section of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) and analysed works of the Viennese School with Josef Polnauer, a former Schoenberg pupil.
- Cerha has produced both orchestral works and opera (among others, Baal, Der Rattenfänger, and Der Riese vom Steinfeld, the latter commissioned by the Vienna State Opera, with a libretto by Peter Turrini).
- In 2017 he got a Honorary doctorate at the University of Siegen.
- Premiere performances of some of his recent works took place in January 2006 (e.g. Impulse for large orchestra, dedicated to the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra on the occasion of its 150th anniversary) as well as in March 2006 (Concerto for Soprano Saxophone and Orchestra, written in 2004).
- He received The Gold Medal for services to the City of Vienna in 2008.
- After a semester at the University of Vienna, he was sent to an Officer's school in occupied Denmark. While there, he obtained a number of blank, but signed, marching order papers and deserted. These papers allowed him to remain undetected within German territory for some time as he could use them as proof that he was supposed to be there. However, after a period, he was forced to rejoin a military unit, during an advance by the Russian forces near Pomerania. He deserted a second time and made his way to the west of Austria, where he lived in the mountains for several months, to avoid capture by the Allied forces, until he was eventually able to return Vienna.
- He was born in Vienna and educated at the Viennese Music Academy (violin with Vása Prihoda, composition with Alfred Uhl, music education) and received a doctorate from the University of Vienna (musicology, German culture and language, philosophy).
- In 2008 he became Honorary Member of the Vienna Konzerthaus.
- In 1956, 1958 and 1959 he attended the Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music.
- He received the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize in 2012.
- Friedrich Cerha has written more than 200 works in different genres from solo to opera.
- Cerha was conscripted, aged 17, as a Luftwaffenhelfer and initially served in Achau, near Vienna. During this time, he participated in a number of acts of resistance against the fascist regime.
- Alongside his career as a composer, Cerha taught at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna from 1959 and between 1976 and 1988 was Professor of Composition, Notation and Interpretation of New Music. Some of his notable students during this time include Georg Friedrich Haas, Karlheinz Essl, Petr Kotik, Gerald Barry and Benet Casablancas.
- In 1958 he founded the ensemble "die reihe" with Kurt Schwertsik, which was an important instrument for the spreading of contemporary music in Austria.
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