About me Thinking music – writing music – as a composer, teacher of music theory puls ear trainig and choir master I work freelance beneath my employment at Musikhochschule Lübeck, where I once studied and now take on administrative tasks.

I was shaped in an environment interested in sacred music, where I discovered old vocal and organ music for myself while listening. I learned Violin and piano, read harmony, counterpoint and scores and I woke up all of a sudden as a child by experiencing Gesang der Jünglinge by Karlheinz Stockhausen and was facinated by Kunst der Fuge by Johann Sebastian Bach. The further questions are still relevant for me today: How is time shaped with sound and sound in time? Is there a universal musical grammar? Why does a Bach chorale setting warm the spirit not less than some ancient Indian raga or the singing of a single, musically untrained person? My teachers during my studies, Roland Ploeger and Friedhelm Döhl in Lübeck and Sven-David Sandström in Stockholm, among many others, strengthened my dedication to serious composition after 1945, to contemporary music, to the scouting for sound and the drama in it.

Spiritual Music – Sacred Music – ‚SURSUM CORDA‘ (‚Lift up hearts‘)! Church Music does not consist of set pieces that are used up, arbitrarily copied and exchanged. Attempts to put a God’s experience into words often take a backseat to what inspired sound can do.

Where do we hear truly inspired sounds more often than in a choir? How alive the sound becomes in the combination of vocal movements, harmonies and vowel colors! In addition, the unconditional equality of people is easily recognizable in the choir and the equal treatment of everyone is a matter of course. Choir sound comes alive for me when there is a balance between strength and weakness.

Progression. Developement. Communicating what I myself have understood, integrated and found helpful in questions of music theory, musical stylistics, composition or choral conducting is what is best for me: When I teach, I learn.