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The German choral conductor and organist, Hayko Siemens, was born as the 12th child of a Schleswig-Holstein pastor couple/ He began his musical education at the age of 8 and had his first position as organist at 13. He studied with Hans Gebhard, Walter Kraft, Michael Schneider and Marie-Claire Alain.
Hayko Siemens' concert debut in Berlin when he was 16, marked the beginning of a career that took him to all major organ centers from Helsinki to Cape Town, from Madrid to Tokyo and Sydney to Auckland and 15 times to America alone. In recent years, his conducting work has become increasingly extensive and diverse. Here, too, he was invited to guest performances around the world and to collaborate with outstanding international orchestras as well as vocal and instrumental soloists.
Hayko Siemens' first field of activity was Kantor and organist of the Erlöserkirche in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe. There he initiated the biannual international organ festival Fugato in 1995, whose Artistic Director he was until 2012. From 1996 to 2016 he held the Kantor position at the Evangelische Bischofskirche St. Matthäus in Munich. From 1998 to 2013 he was also director of the Münchner MotettenChor.
After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in the USA, Hayko Siemens initiated and conducted a well-received memorial concert in the Münchner Philharmonie with Verdi's Messa da Requiem. On the 60th anniversary of the end of the World War II on May 8, 2005, he conducted Benjamin Britten's War Requiem in the Münchner Herkules-Saal in Munich and the premiere of the oratorio Joram on November 8, 2008 at the Reich Spogrom Night. Paul Ben-Haim composed it - still under the name Paul Frankenberger - in his hometown Munich in 1933 before emigrating a little later. In 2008 Hayko Siemens was the only Bavarian representative to be appointed to the artistic advisory board of the Association of German Concert Choirs. |
