Hans-Gunter Lock

b. October 10, 1974, Halle, Germany
Member of the Estonian Composers' Union since 2005

Composer and musicologist Hans-Gunter Lock was born in 1974 in Halle, Germany. Since 2000, he lives and works in Estonia.
Hans-Gunter Lock’s oeuvre comprises predominantly electronic and electroacoustic music, chamber works and film music. He often experiments with light, video, text, movement and sound looking for use of interactive means and options to connect different forms of art. Hans-Gunter Lock has worked together with many different performance and multimedia artists: Erik Alalooga, Loit Jõekalda, Teet Kask, Hille Karm, Liina Vedler, Allan Tõnissoo, Rait Rosin, Mai Sööt, Anna Aua.
In many cases, in a cooperation improvisatory works occur that no longer claim to reproduction or even to be a work of single person as often the works / projects are related to specific performing places and certain performers or co-authors (for example performances Kinematic Mystery and InterAktoRadioDisciplinary with audience interaction, and experimental music theatre performance Mud Music Therapy Lab for actor, singer, flutist, sound designer, video designer and camera-operator).

Most recently, Hans-Gunter Lock has been increasingly engaged in real-time sound synthesis and creation of musical environments involving analogue synthesis and digital electronic instruments as well as acoustic and electromechanical instruments as disklavier. He has also created music, where sound, through the use of sensors, is synthesized of influenced by physical processes. In many of his projects he has used motion sensors as a source of sound synthesis.
Hans-Gunter Lock’s way of creative thinking has been strongly influenced and renewed by the cooperation with composer and conductor Andrus Kallastu. Many alternative musical concepts as open form, interdisciplinarity, united forms of art and experimental solutions, have been discussed and practiced in their numerous projects. Latterly he has discovered microtonal possibilities of organising pitches, using mainly Bohlen-Pierce scale.

Hans-Gunter Lock’s works have been performed in Germany, Finland and Estonia: in Autumn Festival of Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre (2002, 2004, 2009), Estonian Music Days Festival (2003), NYYD Festival (2003, 2005, 2007), Young Estonian Composers Festival in Tartu (2005, 2008), Diverse Universe Festival (2009), Two Beauties’ Festival in Pärnu (2008, 2009), Summer Air Festival in Pärnu (2008, 2009), Pärnu New Music Days (2008, 2009, 2010) and Estonian Music Forum in Helsinki. From 2008, he has repeatedly organized multi-media workshops in Pärnu New Music Days and from 2002, he has been active as sound engeneer and sound designer of ensemble Cyberstudio.

Hans-Gunter Lock has acquired music education in Germany and Estonia. In 1994–2000, he studied music theory with Hans-Wilhelm Hösl, composition with Dimitri Terzakis and electroacoustic music with Eckard Rödger at the Leipzig Felix Mendelssohn Academy of Music and Theatre. In 2002, he received his master's degree in musicology (thesis Eduard Tubin’s use of folk tunes, supervised by Mart Humal) in Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, where he additionally took part in courses of electronic music studio.
In the years 2004-2006, Hans-Gunter Lock supplemented himself in Hamburg Academy of Music and Theatre in the field of multimedia composition with Georg Hajdú. Since September 2008, he is a PhD student at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, studying composition under the guidance of Associate Professor Margo Kõlar.

In 2002–2007 Hans-Gunter Lock worked as a consultant at the Electronic Music Studio of EAMT. Since 2002, he also has been a lecturer teaching sound synthesis, sonogram analysis, algorythmic composition, live-electronics and interactive composition, analogue synthesis practice, electronic music seminar and history of electronic music. In NYYD Festival 2003 and 2005, he was the artistic director of Electronic Music Studio concerts. Since 2007, Hans-Gunter Lock has been working as the head of the New Media Department in the Estonian Academy of Arts.

Hans-Gunter Lock is interested in the Estonian folk music and folklore, as well as the Estonian art music. He has also served as sound engeneer, studied acoustics and sound synthesis, and works by Eduard Tubin. He has published articles in the Year Books of the International Association of Eduard Tubin, and translated various texts about music.
In 2002, he was awarded the Folklore Prize of the Estonian Republic for his recording expeditions to Setumaa.
Hans-Gunter Lock is a member of Lepo Sumera Society, Estonian Arnold Schönberg Society, Estonian Composers’ Union (since 2005) and Estonian Musicological Society (since 2000).

Hans-Gunter Lock’s website

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Updated in October 2017

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