The unique Volker Bertelmann, mainly known as Hauschka, will be stunning the audience with an amazing performance on Friday, August 8th, on the Brukenthal Acoustic Stage within the 9th edition of the Artmania Festival.
Volker Bertelmann, HAUSCHKA, is one of the most recognizable 21st Century proponents of what is known as prepared piano – one whose sound is altered by the insertion of alien objects between or upon its strings, hammers and dampers. The sound of HAUSCHKA has always been both instinctive and fuelled by a love of rhythm. Bertelmann is clearly an artist who knows his instrument inside out, and he’s as unafraid of approaching it with a fresh sensibility as he is capable of drawing upon an unusually large array of influences.
Volker Bertelmann first began to study the piano when he was nine after an epiphany while attending a Chopin performance in his hometown near Düsseldorf, Germany. By the age of 18, Bertelmann had already composed his first film score, and having picked up a deal with Sony Music in 1994. Within the next period he became more and more fascinated with electronic music, developing a particular interest in stripping back anything that he considered redundant within his compositions, until the obsession led to him trying to achieve a similar effect without the use of electricity at all. He discovered that placing material within a piano opened the doors to a whole new sonic world in which he could transform his instrument so that it loosely replicated the sounds of all sorts of others, whether bass guitar, gamelan or the hi-hat cymbal of a drum kit. Ever prolific, Bertelmann has continued to work on numerous other projects throughout the last decade, most notably in the fields of film, theatre, dance and art, thus being rewarded with various awards.
Almost two decades after he began his professional career rapping, Volker Bertelmann aka HAUSCHKA finds himself in the unusual position of being regularly compared to the likes of Eric Satie, John Cage and Steve Reich. In 2011 he was invited by London’s prestigious Barbican to perform as part of Reverberations, a festival celebrating the work and influence of Reich.
Always unpredictable, HAUSCHKA continues to offer only one certainty: that the next step he takes will no doubt be as unexpected as the direction from which he has come. Hauschka has happily announced the release of the new album, Abandoned City on March 17th in Europe and in the USA and will be performing live on the Brukenthal Acoustic Stage within the 9th edition of ARTmania.
