'Führer Command, We Follow You ...'

Hans Erik Deckert (b. 1927 in Hamburg/Germany), son of a Danish mother and a German father, grew up in Germany as a scholar of Musisches Gymnasium in Frankfurt/Main and moved to Denmark shortly after the WW II, in order to study cello and conducting in Copenhagen. His career in these fields, and more generally as a passionate animator of chamber music, has developed from posts held at academies in Germany, Denmark and Sweden to his present freelance activity throughout Europe, Africa and Latin America. Hans Erik Deckert's roots in the German musical tradition have given him a depth of musicianship much in demand at solo and chamber masterclasses and seminars, which is mixed with a concern for the wider social responsibility of music, stemming from his Scandinavian environment. Also, Deckert's encounter with the phenomenology-based thinking of Sergiu Celibidache has been of particular importance for his increasing activity as lecturer and writer on many problematical aspects of our present musical life. Deckert's major concern is the conscious awareness of processes within music to be an objective reality. A further field of his activity is the project of a 'community formation on a musical basis', where social processes occurring within a music playing ensemble can be taken as a template for interactions between human beings, such as occurring within commercial enterprises on a daily basis.