Austrian Composer Conductor Friedrich Cerha has died at the age of 96.

Cerha contributed to new music in Austria and was a driving force in the musical life of the country over the past decades. In a statement, Salzburg Festival Artistic Director Markus Hinterhäuser said, “His rank as a composer is entirely uncontested. As a founder of ensembles and champion of young musicians, Friedrich Cerha had a significant impact, and we owe him the profoundest respect and gratitude.”

Born on Feb. 17, 1926, in Vienna, he began playing the violin at age six and began composing two years later. He was drafted as Luftwaffenhelfer at age 17 and initially served in Achau. He also went on to participate in a number of acts of resistance against the fascist regime and after a semester at the University of Vienna, he was sent to an officer’s school in occupied Denmark.

He went on to study at the Vienna Music Academy, violin with Váša Příhoda, composition with Alfred Uhl, and music pedagogy and received a doctorate from the University of Vienna where he studied musicology, German culture and language, and philosophy.

In 1958 he founded the ensemble “die reihe” together with Kurt Schwertsik and his wife Gertraud Cerha. The ensemble made numerous guest appearances at the Salzburg Festival and in 1965 Friedrich Cerha made his Festival debut as a conductor and violinist, performing two commemorative concerts on the 20th anniversary of Anton Webern’s death.

Cerha’s compositions, “Spiegel I & IV,” were featured five years later on the Festival’s program and he received enthusiastic reactions from reviewers and audiences alike. In 1981 he world premiere his opera “Baal” at the festival and in 1996, Hans Landesmann dedicated a seven-concert cycle to Cerha commemorating his 70th birthday, the Project F. Cerha.

In 2016, the Festival dedicated another cycle to Cerha as part of the series Salzburg contemporary.

Outside of his work with the Salzburg Festival, Cerha was recognized for completing Alban Berg’s unfinished three-act opera “Lulu.” He orchestrated sections of the third act using Berg’s notes as a reference and the opera premiered in Paris in 1979.

He was also a teacher at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna from 1959 and between 1976 and 1988 was a professor of Composition, Notation, and Interpretation of New Music.

In 2006 Cerha and his wife Gertraud founded the Joseph Marx Society. He is survived by his wife Gertrud and his daughter Ruth.