Austrian composer and conductor Roland Freisitzer was born on 16th of August 1973. After growing up in Moscow, Warsaw and Cape Town, he commenced his studies at the Vienna Conservatory, before returning to Moscow in 1989 to study composition with Alfred Schnittke and Edison Denisov. After several interruptions of his studies due to conducting activities, he finished his studies 1999 at the Baku Music Academy in the class of Prof. Faraj Karaev.

Apart from his spell as principal conductor and artistic director of “The Moscow Orchestra” (1994-1999), he has been principal guest conductor of the Azerbaijan State Philharmonic Orchestra and the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2002, together with Alexander Wagendristel and Thomas Heinisch, he founded “Ensemble Reconsil Vienna”, which has since then become one of Austria’s foremost ensembles for new music (having performed more than 300 world premieres since then). Recently, he has conducted KammarensembleN (Stockholm), Ensemble “die Reihe” and the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra (with whom he also performed the Lithuanian premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s D’om le vrai sans together with Kari Kriikku). With “ensemble reconsil”, he has embarked on the gigantic “Exploring the World” project, which started in May 2014 and will continue until May 2015.

His works are performed by Ensembles such as “ensemble reconsil”, Ensemble Modern, Hugo Wolf Quartet, Ensemble “die Reihe”, Ensemble Kontrapunkte, KammarensembleN, GAGEEGO!, Studio New Music Moscow at Frankfurter Alte Oper, Schönberg Center Vienna, Wien modern, Dresdner Tage für zeitgemäße Musik, RadioKulturHaus Wien and the Beijing New Music Festival, among many other places, countries and festivals. Recent commissions have included works for Ensemble Modern and Hugo Wolf Quartet.

Twice recipient of the Austrian State Stipendium for Composers, he won the “Outstanding” award in 2009 for his “Dies Irae”. Austrian Radio has released a portrait CD of his works, other works are available on Phoenix Records, Spektral Records and Extraplatte.

Roland Freisitzer’s music is (with the exception of arrangements of works by Alexander Zemlinsky, which are published by Universal Edition AG) exclusively published by ApollEdition Vienna.

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Since September 2019 leads ensemble for contemporary music at Musik- und Kunstuniversität der Stadt Wien.