Volker Bertelmann (Hauschka)

The impressive creative career of Volker Bertelmann (aka Hauschka) started when his piano teacher told him at the age of 14 that there was nothing more he could teach his student – after only five years of lessons. It is difficult to describe what Bertelmann can get out of his ‘prepared piano’ – one has to hear it to understand it.

Exploring the possibilities of the piano eventually brought Bertelmann to alter the sounds of his piano by attaching various materials such as pieces of paper, marbles, drumsticks and others to its strings in order to create non-piano-like sounds. He released a number of solo and collaboration albums, the latest being Abandoned City (2014). It received outstanding reviews, but Bertelmann was ready for new challenges and accepted a position as Composer in Residence for the Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk orchestra in Leipzig.

The composer also has a prolific side line writing scores for films, having contributed to the soundtracks of Craig Macneill’s The Boy (2015), Karim Ainouz’ Praia du Futuro (2014) and Yael Reuveny’s Farewell, Herr Scharz (2015). Showing no signs of slowing down, the father of three continues to compose, score and tour, spreading his musical visions.

In 2017, Bertelmann and Dustin O’Halloran created the Oscar and BAFTA-nominated score for the internationally acclaimed feature film Lion. His current projects include further feature films 1000 Arten, Hotel Mumbai and The Current War, a new collaboration with O’Halloran. He is also working on the scores for the TV series' Gunpowder, a BBC production starring Kit Harrington and Liv Tyler, and the Benedict Cumberbatch programme Melrose, which will be broadcast on Sky.

Always unpredictable, Bertelmann continues to offer only one certainty: that the next step he takes will be as unexpected as the direction from which he has come.