Biography

The author, composer, pianist and organist Dr. Hans-Joachim Hessler was born on January 7, 1968 in Recklinghausen (Germany). Today, he works and lives in Duisburg and Diemelsee (both Germany). Even before his studies to become a music teacher in Dortmund (piano with Prof. Werner Seiss), he started his career in the mid-1980s as a musician in the threshold region between contemporary composition, free improvisation and jazz. Alongside his music theoretical studies with Prof. Heribert Buchholz, he emerged more or less autodidactically as a composer with a meanwhile very comprehensive oeuvre. His work contains symphonic orchestra pieces, instrumental and vocal chamber music creations, musical versions of literature, theater music, as well as diverse compositions of jazz.

Artistic Aspects

Since the spring semester of 1997, he is artistic assistant lecturer in the subjects of piano, accompanying piano playing, and music theory in the music department of the University of Dortmund. For over thirty years, Hessler has been present in the contemporary music scene as an instrumentalist and as an ensemble leader, among other with the Ab-Art-Ensemble, the tenor saxophonist Matthias Schubert and the double bass player Stefan Werni, as well as the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Brasov (Rumania).

Aesthetic Aspects

A very characteristic element of Hesslers compositions are structural fractures, being inspired by the music of Charles Mingus, Frank Zappa and John Zorn. Hessler extends this concept of musical and temporal-historical discontinuity, connecting it to the traditional European music having been composed between antiquity and 21st century.

Scientific Aspects

After having completed his postgraduate studies, he was awarded the academic degree of Doctor Philosophiae (Dr. Phil.) - the equivalent to an Anglo-American PhD - by the University of Music and Performing Arts in Graz (Austria). During the years 2000-2010 he founded several publishing houses, for which he organizes book publications, concert series and recordings.