He was an influential composer of contemporary classical music in Germany who taught internationally, including in the United States, Israel, and Korea.
Born in Gornsdorf, Saxony, on 4 December 1930,[1][2][3] Dittrich studied composition with Fidelio F. Finke and conducting with Günther Ramin at the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig from 1951 to 1956.
[4] From 1983 to 1991, he trained master students at the Akademie der Künste, including Klaus Martin Kopitz, Hannes Zerbe, Annette Schlünz and Péter Kőszeghy.
[2] Dittrich held guest professorships at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg on an invitation by Klaus Huber (1978),[6] the Arnold Schönberg-Institut in Los Angeles and the University of California, San Diego (1980),[6] the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln in Heimbach (1988–89),[2] the Samuel Rubin Academy Tel Aviv and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1990),[7] and the Daegu University in South Korea, in Moscow and Saint Petersburg (1992).
[8] He corresponded with personalities such as Carlfriedrich Claus [de], Burkhard Glaetzner, Vinko Globokar, Sofia Gubaidulina, Hans Peter Haller, Hans Werner Henze, Heinz Holliger, Herbert Kegel, Marek Kopelent, Aurèle Nicolet, Luigi Nono, Heinrich Schiff and Karlheinz Stockhausen.
[11] Dittrich also wrote staged works that set texts by Samuel Beckett, James Joyce, Franz Kafka and Heiner Müller.