composer

Détlefsen, Hans Christian

Nationality: Germany
Date of birth: 1951

Hans Christian Détlefsen was born in the northernmost part of Germany in 1951. In 1969 he participated in the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik in Darmstadt. From 1969 to 1974 he studied piano, music education and music theory at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Hamburg.

In 1974 he was awarded the first prize at the International Gaudeamus Composition Competition for Annäherung for five trombones. For the next two years, with the support of a Fulbright scholarship, he studied composition and electronic music at the California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles. His teachers were Leonard Stein, Earle Brown and Morton Subotnick. At CalArts he also discovered Javanese gamelan music which he studied under the legendary K.R.T. Wasitodipuro.

In 1976 he graduated with a Master of Fine Arts degree. After teaching music in Hamburg for two years his continuing interest in gamelan music led him to Amsterdam and eventually to Indonesia where he studied gamelan in 1979. After extensive travels in Southeast Asia he settled in Amsterdam in 1981. His oeuvre consists of solo pieces, mainly for piano, as well as chamber, vocal, electroacoustic and film music.

He is married to the Dutch artist Rini Antonissen, homme extraordinaire.