Andreas N. Tarkmann
Andreas N. Tarkmann, born in Hanover in 1956, received his first musical training in the Hanover Boys’ Choir, was initially trained as an oboist and is today considered one of the most creative arrangers of instrumental and vocal music. In addition, Tarkmann is successful as a versatile composer in a wide variety of musical genres.
As an arranger, Tarkmann has been commissioned by internationally renowned ensembles (such as the Scharoun Ensemble, the Linos Ensemble, hr-brass and the brass section of the Berlin Philharmonic) as well as domestic and foreign radio stations to write numerous wind and harmony music versions, which have since found their way into the repertoire of other renowned orchestras worldwide. He has arranged works by Mozart, Smetana, Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky and Prokofiev, among others. His harmony music of Mendelssohn’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” won the “Echo-Klassik” in the recording of the wind soloists of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie in 1998. Many more of Tarkmann’s arrangements are also available on CD, including productions with Placido Domingo, Jonas Kaufmann, Anna Netrebko, Elina Garanca, Albrecht Mayer, James Galway and Sharon Kam. The clarinettist Sabine Meyer recorded the cadenzas and ornaments written by Tarkmann for the clarinet concertos by Carl and Johann Stamitz in a recording that also won the “Echo-Klassik”. Recent CD releases include a chamber version of Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto, Lortzing harmony music and reconstructed clarinet concertos by Vivaldi for Martin Fröst. Another speciality of Andreas N. Tarkmann are reconstructions or instrumentations of incompletely surviving works such as Julius Rietz’s Concert Piece for Wind Quintet and Orchestra, the cantata “The Division of the Earth” attributed to Joseph Haydn and the “Composizione da camera” by Giuseppe Verdi.
Tarkmann’s oeuvre as a composer includes works for family concerts such as “Die Prinzessin auf der Erbse” (Rheinische Philharmonie Koblenz, 2005) and “Der Mistkäfer” (Wuppertal Symphony Orchestra, 2004) after Hans Christian Andersen as well as “Na warte, said Schwarte” after Helme Heine (Aachen Symphony Orchestra, 2007), but also youth operas such as “La belle au bois dormant” (Essen Philharmonic, 2007), “Räuber Hotzenplotz” (Aachen Theatre, 2009) and “Didos Geheimnis” (Hanover Girls’ Choir, 2011). His settings of cabaret texts by Friedhelm Kändler, Elke Heidenreich, Werner Finck and Erich Kästner are part of the standard repertoire of many chanson interpreters.
In 2013, Andreas N. Tarkmann was the winner of the renowned ECHO classical music award: the recording of “Na warte, sagte Schwarte” and “Die verlorene Melodie” was awarded the “Klassik für Kinder” prize. The LEOPOLD 2019 media prize was awarded to the CD with Tarkmann’s compositions “Dwarf Nose” and “The Cold Heart”.
From 2000 – 2016, Andreas N. Tarkmann taught instrumentation and arrangement at the Mannheim University of Music, where he was appointed professor in 2007.
Until 2019, Tarkmann also taught instrumentation at the Musicological Institute of the University of Tübingen. He is also the author of specialist books: “Arrangieren für Kammerensemble” (Staccato-Verlag 2010), “Praktische Instrumentenkunde” (Bärenreiter 2018).
