Manuel Zwerger, born 1992 in Bolzano. Studied composition with Franz Baur, Simon Steen-Andersen, Niels Rønsholdt and Juliana Hodkinson at the Tyrolean State Conservatory in Innsbruck and at the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus. Further studies with Hannes Kerschbaumer and Wolfram Schurig.

As a composer, Manuel Zwerger works at the interface between new music, performance and installation art. He pays particular attention to scenic-performative and theatrical aspects that question the socio-aesthetic potential of our media society in an interdisciplinary and multi-sensory way. The thematic focus is on familiar phenomena of music-making and the production of sound, which are combined and scrutinised with influences from everyday life, pop culture, anti-art, current trends and science.

He has received various scholarships and grants for his work, including the Composition Scholarship of the Akademie Musiktheater heute of the Deutsche Bank Foundation (2017-19), the Starting Scholarship of the Federal Chancellery of Austria (2020), the Heinrich von Mörl Scholarship (2021), the State Scholarship of the Federal Chancellery of Austria (2022) and the Hilde Zach Composition Scholarship of the City of Innsbruck (2023).