Irmin Schmidt
(original film score)
He was born in Herford in 1970 and started hismovie career as a trainee on “Der Kinoerzähler“ with Armin Mueller-Stahl. He was assistant film editor in Christian Wagners “Transatlantis”, where he worked with Peter Przygodda for the first time. He was then also his assistant in Wim Wenders “Lisbon Story”, Romuald Karmakars “Der Totmacher “ and “Manila” and Volker Schlöndorffs “Palmetto” and “Die Stille nach dem Schuss”. He directed “The Dreamer“ and “Im Rhythmus der Zeit“. In 2000 Weiss founded “Die Filmmanufaktur” along with Marco Kreuzpaintner, with which “Der Atemkünstler” (directed by Marco Kreuzpaintner) was produced. Together with Peter Przygodda he edited Wim Wenders “Dont Come Knocking”, which was nominated for Best Film Editing at the European Film Awards.
Before Schmidt founded the now legendary group CAN in 1968, he had completed a comprehensive music degree: composition, piano, conducting and musical ethnology. His composition teachers included G. Ligeti and K.H. Stockhausen.
Schmidt has been appearing as a pianist and conductor since 1960 and has composed music for film and theatre productions.
His musical creations since CAN have included the most varied of works, such as:
Orchester Musik I – IV, the solo albums “Toy Planet“, “Musk At Dusk“, “Impossible Holidays“, “Anthology Soundtracks 1978 – 1993“ (3CD Box Set) and more than 120 film scores.
Schmidts fantasy opera “Gormenghast“ premiered at the Wuppertal Opera House in 1998. The Times critic Rodney Milnes wrote:
“If Richard Strauss had written rock music, this is how it would have sounded – glorious and shamelessly sensual.”
The work was presented again at the Weltkulturerbe Völklinger Hütte in 2004 and at the Luxembourg Grand Theatre.
In 2003, Schmidt received a lifetime achievement ECHO award, along with other group members Liebezeit and Czukay, for CAN.
In 2005 the German Oper am Rhein commissioned him to write the music for the ballet La Fermosa (choreography by Youri Vamos, premiere in Düsseldorf on 1.3.2008). In 1997 Irmin Schmidt took on the sound engineer, programmer and sound designer Jono Podmore AKA Kumo for the production of his opera Gormenghast.
This cooperation produced the albums “Masters Of Confusion“ (2001) and the sound installation “Flies, Guys and Choirs“ for the Barbican Centre in London, and “Axolotl Eyes“ in 2008.
The duo have done numerous concerts all over Europe since 2002, including an appearance at the Montreux Jazz Festival.