I’ve known Georg Friedrich Haas for many years, first as a teacher and later as a friend and mentor, and his music has been a constant source of inspiration. Ahead of the North American premiere of his monumental “11,000 Strings” for 50 microtonally attuned pianos and chamber orchestra performed by Klangforum Wien at the Park Avenue Armory in New York, I spoke with Haas for nearly three hours—a conversation distilled here for publication. We ranged across politics and the cultural forces shaping the United States, the technical and perceptual foundations of “11,000 Strings,” the reception of his work in Europe and the U.S., and looking ahead, to his ambitious vision for an eight-hour opera reimagining Hans Christian Andersen fairytales.
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