Irmin Schmidt (born 29 May 1937) is a German

keyboardist A keyboardist or keyboard player is a musician who plays keyboard instruments. Until the early 1960s musicians who played keyboards were generally classified as either pianists or organists. Since the mid-1960s, a plethora of new musical instru ...

and

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

, best known as a founding member of the band Can and composer of numerous

film score A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film. The score comprises a number of orchestral, instrumental, or choral pieces called cues, which are timed to begin and end at specific points during the film in order to ...

Biography

Early life and composer career

Irmin Schmidt was born on 29 May 1937 in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

, Germany, to Kurt and Margot Schmidt. Schmidt's father was an architect and engineer, and both his parents played piano. His board school teacher in modern history has been "Schulungsleiter" (teacher of ideology) in the

Reichsarbeitsdienst The Reich Labour Service (''Reichsarbeitsdienst''; RAD) was a major paramilitary organization established in Nazi Germany as an agency to help mitigate the effects of unemployment on the Economy of Nazi Germany, German economy, militarise the wo ...

during the rule of the

Third Reich Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictat ...

. Schmidt wrote about it in his school newspaper, and the teacher was fired. Schmidt began his studies in music at the conservatorium in

Dortmund Dortmund (; ; ) is the third-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia, after Cologne and Düsseldorf, and the List of cities in Germany by population, ninth-largest city in Germany. With a population of 614,495 inhabitants, it is the largest city ...

, and expanded his education in conducting at the

Folkwang Hochschule The Folkwang University of the Arts is a university for music, theater, dance, design, and academic studies, located in four German cities of North Rhine-Westphalia. Since 1927, its traditional main location has been in the former Werden Abbey in ...

in Essen, studying under Heinz Dressel. Additionally, he took a piano lessons from

Detlef Kraus Detlef Kraus (30 November 1919 – 7 January 2008) was a German pianist. He was an internationally known interpreter of the music of Johannes Brahms. Born in Hamburg, Kraus gave his first concert at the age of 16, playing '' The Well-Tempered ...

and studied

composition Composition or Compositions may refer to: Arts and literature *Composition (dance), practice and teaching of choreography * Composition (language), in literature and rhetoric, producing a work in spoken tradition and written discourse, to include ...

under the Hungarian

avant-garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...

composer

György Ligeti György Sándor Ligeti (; ; 28 May 1923 – 12 June 2006) was a Hungarian-Austrian composer of contemporary classical music. He has been described as "one of the most important avant-garde music, avant-garde composers in the latter half of the ...

. Schmidt started work mainly as a conductor and performed in concerts with the

Bochum Bochum (, ; ; ; ) is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia. With a population of 372,348 (April 2023), it is the sixth-largest city (after Cologne, Düsseldorf, Dortmund, Essen and Duisburg) in North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous German federa ...

Symphony, the

Vienna Symphony The Vienna Symphony (Vienna Symphony Orchestra, ) is an Austrian orchestra based in Vienna. Its primary concert venue is the Vienna Konzerthaus. In Vienna, the orchestra also performs at the Musikverein and at the Theater an der Wien. History ...

, and the Dortmund Ensemble for New Music, which he founded in 1962. During this time, Schmidt conducted the West German premiere of

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and Extended technique, non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one ...

's "Atlas Eclipticalis" with Bochum Symphony Orchestra and performed Cage's piano piece "Winter Music". Schmidt attended the

Mozarteum Mozarteum University Salzburg ( German: ''Universität Mozarteum Salzburg'') is one of three affiliated but separate (it is actually a state university) entities under the "Mozarteum" name in Salzburg municipality; the International Mozarteu ...

Salzburg Salzburg is the List of cities and towns in Austria, fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020 its population was 156,852. The city lies on the Salzach, Salzach River, near the border with Germany and at the foot of the Austrian Alps, Alps moun ...

, Austria to further develop his conducting skills under István Kertész. In 1964-1965, Schmidt attended up for the Cologne Courses for New Music at the in

Cologne Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...

, taught by

Karlheinz Stockhausen Karlheinz Stockhausen (; 22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. He is known for his groun ...

Luciano Berio Luciano Berio (24 October 1925 – 27 May 2003) was an Italian composer noted for his experimental music, experimental work (in particular his 1968 composition ''Sinfonia (Berio), Sinfonia'' and his series of virtuosic solo pieces titled ''Seque ...

Henri Pousseur Henri Léon Marie-Thérèse Pousseur (; 23 June 1929 – 6 March 2009) was a Belgian classical composer, teacher, and music theorist. Biography Pousseur was born in Malmedy and studied at the Academies of Music in Liège and in Brussels from 19 ...

, and

Earle Brown Earle Brown (December 26, 1926 – July 2, 2002) was an American composer who established his own formal and notational systems. Brown was the creator of "open form," a style of musical construction that has influenced many composers since, ...

, the course which was also attended by his future band-mates, Holger Schüring and David C. Johnson. By 1966 Schmidt got a position as

Kapellmeister ( , , ), from German (chapel) and (master), literally "master of the chapel choir", designates the leader of an ensemble of musicians. Originally used to refer to somebody in charge of music in a chapel, the term has evolved considerably in i ...

at the

Theater Aachen Theater Aachen is a theatre in Aachen, Germany. It is the principal venue in that city for operas, musical theatre and plays. It is the home of the Sinfonieorchester Aachen. The original project was by Johann Peter Cremer, later altered by Ka ...

, hired as

docent The term "docent" is derived from the Latin word , which is the third-person plural present active indicative of ('to teach, to lecture'). Becoming a docent is often referred to as habilitation or doctor of science and is an academic qualifi ...

for musical theatre and

chanson A (, ; , ) is generally any Lyrics, lyric-driven French song. The term is most commonly used in English to refer either to the secular polyphonic French songs of late medieval music, medieval and Renaissance music or to a specific style of ...

, and worked at the Schauspielschule Bochum (drama school) teaching vocal technique. In January 1966, Schmidt made his first-time travel to the United States, flying to

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

to compete in the "

Dimitri Mitropoulos Dimitri Mitropoulos (; – 2 November 1960) was a Greek and American conductor, pianist, and composer. Life and career Mitropoulos was born in Athens, the son of Yannis and Angelikē (Angeliki) Mitropoulos. His father owned a leather goods s ...

Conducting Competition". He got into the city's flourishing underground arts scene: watched

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (;''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''"Warhol" born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director and producer. A leading figure in the pop art movement, Warhol ...

's movies, and spent time with several young progenitors of

and

minimalist music In visual arts, music, and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in the post-war era in western art. The movement is often interpreted as a reaction to abstract expressionism and modernism; it anticipated contemporary post-m ...

, including

La Monte Young La Monte Thornton Young (born October 14, 1935) is an American composer, musician, and performance artist recognized as one of the first American minimalist composers and a central figure in Fluxus and post-war avant-garde music. He is best k ...

Dick Higgins Dick Higgins (15 March 1938 – 25 October 1998) was an American artist, composer, art theorist, poet, publisher, printmaker, and a co-founder of the Fluxus international artistic movement (and community). Inspired by John Cage, Higgins was ...

Steve Reich Stephen Michael Reich ( ; born October 3, 1936) is an American composer best known as a pioneer of minimal music in the mid to late 1960s. Reich's work is marked by its use of repetitive figures, slow harmonic rhythm, and canons. Reich descr ...

, and

Terry Riley Terrence Mitchell Riley (born June 24, 1935) is an American composer and performing musician best known as a pioneer of the minimalist music, minimalist school of composition. Influenced by jazz and Indian classical music, his work became notab ...

. Schmidt played piano in a session with Riley. Schmidt's spouse Hildegard introduced him to Russian-American composer Serge Tcherepnin, and Irmin played the

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to p ...

part at the 1966 premiere of Tcherepnin's ''Morning After Piece''. In 1967, Irmin performed several

Fluxus Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers, and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental performance art, art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finishe ...

-style diagrammatic scores, and published them as ''Album für Mogli'', pet name for his spouse Hildegard. ''Album für Mogli'' has been organized as a set of thirteen-sheet manuscript, supposed to be stacked in any order by any number of musicians. The score's composition "Hexapussy" premiered in Frankfurt, played on metallic sound-sculptures created by the

Baschet Brothers The Baschet Brothers were two French artists named François Baschet (born 30 March 1920, in Paris; died 11 February 2014) and Bernard Baschet (born 24 August 1917, Paris; died 17 July 2015) who collaborated on creating sound sculptures and inve ...

. Other titles included" "Oiml(g): Nightmares", "Gagaku", "Für Jackson MacLow", "Erinnerung", "Dieter's Lullaby", "Nada", "Prinzipien", and other. "Hexapussy" remained as an only survived recording, appearing on the soundtrack composed by Can for 1969 film Agilok & Blubbo. On a number of occasions, Irmin was asked to give talks or perform avant-garde music at gallery openings organized by . Schulze-Vellinghausen, in turn, acquainted Schmidt with interior designer and up-in-coming gallerist Hans Mayer.

Can and film scores

In the autumn of 1967, Irmin wrote a letter to his friend composer, Holger Czukay, inviting him to Cologne and suggesting they should form a band. In 1968, in the midst of the

West German student movement The West German student movement (), sometimes called the 1968 movement in West Germany (), was a left-wing social movement that consisted of mass student protests in West Germany in 1968. Participants in the movement later came to be known as ...

, Schmidt co-formed the Inner Space band (later known as Can) with Holger Czukay,

Michael Karoli Michael Karoli (29 April 1948 – 17 November 2001) was a German guitarist, violinist, and sound-mixer. He was a founding member of the krautrock band Can. Biography Early life Michael Karoli was born 29 April 1948 in Straubing, Bavaria, t ...

, Jaki Liebezeit, and David C. Johnson. Schmidt took part in the band's recording sessions playing keyboard until the group's disbandment in 1979. He participated in the band's reunions in 1986, 1991, and 1999. He later commented on their relation to the political movement of 1968, saying the band weren't involved in the movement, "physically or even theoretically, but was a reflection of the ongoing tumult that rejected any overt political affiliations". Early in 1968, Irmin received a commission to provide music for 1969 film Agilok & Blubbo at the recommendation of Hans Wewerka who the worked as the film's producer and previously published Irmin's ''Album für Mogli'' score. Around May, Irmin had made a loose sketch of the soundtrack, aided by David C. Johnson, and eventually decided to invite his new band on the project, which became the band's first released recording. When searching for a base for the new group, Irmin had "put the word out among his art world friends", and German literary scholar Hans Mayer responded, redirecting him to the art collector and their joined acquaintance, . Vohwinkel recently leased a historic castle, Schloss Nörvenich, on the outskirts of

and planned to repurpose it as an artistic commune. He invited the band to stay at the castle rent-free for a year. Schmidt has scored more than forty films and television programs, including '' Knife in the Head'' (1978) and '' Palermo Shooting'' (2008). He has recorded a few solo albums and written an opera, '' Gormenghast'', based on

Mervyn Peake Mervyn Laurence Peake (9 July 1911 – 17 November 1968) was a British writer, artist, poet, and illustrator. He is best known for what are usually referred to as the '' Gormenghast'' books. The four works were part of what Peake conceived ...

's '' Gormenghast Trilogy''. ''Gormenghast'' premiered at the Opernhaus Wuppertal in 1998. Excerpts from the work were released on Spoon Records in 1999. As of 2008, Schmidt lived in

Southern France Southern France, also known as the south of France or colloquially in French as , is a geographical area consisting of the regions of France that border the Atlantic Ocean south of the Marais Poitevin,Louis Papy, ''Le midi atlantique'', Atlas e ...

. His interests outside music include cooking. In 2015, he received the

Ordre des Arts et des Lettres The Order of Arts and Letters () is an order of France established on 2 May 1957 by the Minister of Culture. Its supplementary status to the was confirmed by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963. Its purpose is the recognition of significant ...

(Chevalier). In 2018, Schmidt and British writer and editor Rob Young published a book on Can entitled '' All Gates Open: The Story of Can''. Following the death of Can's second lead vocalist

Damo Suzuki , known as Damo Suzuki (ダモ鈴木), was a Japanese musician best known as the vocalist for the German Krautrock group Can (band), Can between 1970 and 1973. Born in 1950 in Kobe, Japan, he moved to Europe in the late 1960s where he was spotte ...

in February 2024, Schmidt is one of the last surviving members of the band's classic lineups, alongside original vocalist

Malcolm Mooney Malcolm "Desse" Mooney (born 1944) is an American singer, poet, and artist, best known as the original vocalist for German krautrock band Can (band), Can. Biography Early life Malcolm Mooney's father, after serving in the navy, became a jazz pia ...

Personal life

Irmin Schmidt began a relationship with Hildegard Reittenberger after performing at the East German music festival in 1957. The couple got married six years later in 1963. They have a daughter, Sandra, born in April 1970. Sandra married Jono Podmore in 2001. The couple has a daughter Lara Podmore. Hildegard became Can's manager in 1972, after they fired their previous manager, Abi Ofarim. In 1979, she established record label, Spoon Records, taking control of the copyright for the Can discography.

Discography

Solo

* ''Filmmusik'' (1980) * ''Filmmusik, Vol. 2'' (1981) * ''Toy Planet'' (1981) with Bruno Spoerri * ''Filmmusik, Vols. 3 & 4'' (1983) * '' Rote Erde'' (1983) soundtrack * ''Musk at Dusk'' (1987) * ''Filmmusik Vol. 5'' (1989) * ''Impossible Holidays'' (1991) * ''Soundtracks 1978–1993'' (1994) * ''Gormenghast'' (2000) * ''Masters of Confusion'' (2001) with

Kumo Kumo may refer to: * Kokemäki, ''Kumo'' in Swedish, a municipality of Finland * Kumo (album), ''Kumo'' (album), album released by D'espairsRay in 2000 * Kumo (musician) (born 1965), British musician and composer * Kumo (sculpture), ''Kumo'' (scu ...

* ''Flies, Guys and Choirs'' (2008) DVD with Kumo * ''Axolotl Eyes'' (2008) with Kumo * '' Palermo Shooting'' (2008) soundtrack * ''Filmmusik Anthology, Volume 4 & 5'' (2009) * ''Villa Wunderbar'' (2013), 2-CD compilation, sleeve notes by

Wim Wenders Ernst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders (; born 14 August 1945) is a German filmmaker and photographer, who is a major figure in New German Cinema. Among the honors he has received are prizes from the Cannes Film Festival, Cannes, Venice International Film ...

* ''Filmmusik Anthology Volume 6'' (2015) * ''5 Klavierstücke'' (2018) * ''Nocturne (Live at Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival)'' (2020)

With Can

Bibliography

Videography

*'' Romantic Warriors IV: Krautrock'' (2019)

References

External links

*
The Official CAN / Spoon Records Website
* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Schmidt, Irmin 1937 births Living people German keyboardists German film score composers German male film score composers Mozarteum University Salzburg alumni Can (band) members Musicians from Berlin Pupils of Karlheinz Stockhausen Chevaliers of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres