Hans-Jürgen Hufeisen

The difficult relationship with his mother, who died in 2007, throughout his life also became an inspiration to him. "I have written a lot of music pieces where I know today: this has actually always had something to do with this mother, it always has something to do with birth and life. Music helps me to express the world of the soul within me - when I put it into an external form, namely into sound, then it's something like a liberation."

Since 1983, he has created large stage works (music, choreography and texts) for the German Evangelical Church Assembly, among others. In the process, he worked together with the theologians Jörg Zink [de] (Creation, The Song of the Four Elements), Walter Hollenweger from Switzerland (Bonhoeffer Requiem, Easter Dance of Women), Anselm Grün (Easter Joy, Divine Child), John O'Donohue from Ireland (Anam Cara), Zephania Kameeta from Namibia (Seasons of the Heart - A Dialogue with Africa), Ulrich Schaffer (The Journey into One's Heart), Margot Käßmann (Creation Time 2007 / Mothers of the Bible - Children of the Bible 2010 / The Wise Men 2011 / Longing for Life 2012, Message of the Angels 2012), Frieder Gadesmann [de], Kisses, Sweeter than Wine (2012) and Christoph Sigrist [de] as librettist for The Zwingli File - A Mystery Play 2016 in Zurich (director: Volker Hesse). Another significant work was performed in Wallis/Switzerland in 1999: "Der helle Morgenstern", a stage work on the Apocalypse.

Hufeisen won prizes at regional competitions of "Jugend musiziert"; from 1972 to 1977 he studied recorder, music education and composition at the Folkwang University of the Arts. Meanwhile, from 1974 to 1978, he was employed as a lecturer at the International Children's and Young People's Book Fair in Duisburg, and from 1975 to 1977 as a lecturer at the Folkwang University of Music. From 1977 to 1991, he worked as a regional consultant for musical and cultural education at the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Württemberg. During this time, he passed his concert exam at the Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe with Gerhard Braun in 1981. Since 1991, he has worked as a freelance composer, producer and musician. The artist now lives in Zurich.

According to Hufeisen, the dramatic circumstances of his birth contributed to his enormous musical creativity. "This start has forever brought a dark side into my life. I can't get rid of that. I have to carry that around with me and keep it inside me." Music had "carried him out of this darkness into the light. For this reason he told the journalist Uwe Birnstein [de] his life story on the occasion of his 60th birthday. It was published under the title "Das unglaubliche Leben des Flötenspielers Hans-Jürgen Hufeisen" by Verlag Herder and attracted great media attention.

Hans-Jürgen Hufeisen (born 10 February 1954) is a German recorder player and composer.

Horseshoe was born in a hotel room in Anrath [de]). His mother, a travelling saleswoman from the Allgäu, had kept the pregnancy a secret. Two days after the birth, she abandoned her son; the hotelier found the infant under a bedspread. On 12 February 1954, the Youth Welfare Office took care of the foundling and brought him to a Catholic baby home in Lobberich. On Boxing Day, he was baptised Protestant with the name Hans-Jürgen; the mother had instructed a midwife to do this before she left. Hufeisen went to live with a foster mother and in 1957 to the Protestant children's home Haus Sonneck of Neukirchen-Vluyn. There a governess discovered Hufeisen's musical talent and taught him Christian evening songs and how to play the recorder.