Bernd Hänschke

Born in Duisburg on 1 December 1948, Bernd Hänschke is a composer, conductor and university teacher. He studied school music at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik Köln as well as composition with Joachim Blume and Hans Ulrich Humpert, and from 1980 to 1983 he was a member of Hans Werner Henze’s master class in Cologne. He taught music at the Gymnasium Rheinkamp in Moers. In 1989 he founded the Henze-Kammerensemble, of which he became conductor and artistic director, and in 1998 initiated the German-Danish project “EuHenzeNord” with Mogens Christensen. His work encompasses music of all genres and frequently seeks proximity to the stage, theatre, image and electronic media; he collaborates with the painters Christof Heyduck and Hans Werner Berretz, among others. Since 2000 he has also directed the Ensemble Neue Musik at the Hochschule für Musik Detmold, Dortmund department. In 2015 his “Bagatelle – für Beethoven” was premiered in Bonn in Susanne Kessel’s project “250 piano pieces for Beethoven”. In 1995 Cybele Records released the album Changeant with his works.