Biography
-
Born
1966 (age 58)
-
Born In
Kreuztal, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany
Volker Bertelmann (born 1966) is a German pianist and composer who mainly performs and records under the name Hauschka. He is best known for his compositions for prepared piano.
Bertelmann was born in Kreuztal, Germany. He grew up in the village of Ferndorf in the district of Siegen-Wittgenstein, North Rhine-Westphalia. The fifth of six children, he discovered piano playing at the age of nine at church service. He began studying classical piano and continued taking lessons for the next ten years.
Bertelmann formed his first rock band when he was fourteen. During the following years he was commissioned to compose music for television and sang in a number of other bands. After leaving school he moved to Cologne, where he began studying medicine and then switched to a course in business economics, but gave up both in order to concentrate on music.
His score for Garth Davis’ Oscar-nominated film Lion, which he composed in collaboration with Dustin O’Halloran, was nominated for multiple awards: for the 2016 Oscar for Best Original Score, for the 2016 Golden Globes for Best Original Score, for Best Score at the 2016 Critics’ Choice Awards, for Best Original Score – Feature Film at the 2016 Hollywood Music in Media Awards, and for Best Film Music at the 2016 British Academy Film Awards, or BAFTAs.
Since then, Bertelmann has provided music for several leading films and television series. He composed the score for Patrick Melrose, Showtime’s Emmy-and BAFTA nominated mini-series, Gunpowder, the HBO mini-series starring Kit Harington, and Life After Life for BBC. He also composed film scores for Adrift, the 2018 romantic drama directed by Baltasar Kormákur, and, again in collaboration with O’Halloran, for Ammonite, which was short-listed for The Academy Awards in 2020. In 2022, he scored All Quiet on the Western Front for Netflix, the official Best International Feature Film Oscar-entry for Germany, and War Sailor, both of which were official selections at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Bertelmann is an active member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Artist descriptions on Last.fm are editable by everyone. Feel free to contribute!
All user-contributed text on this page is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply.
