Saturday, July 14, 2018

Who Are Those Composers? ~ Günther Fischer



Günther Fischer was born in Teplitz-Schönau, Austria-Hungary on June 23, 1944. His family fled after the war from Teplitz-Schönau to Zwickau. He received violin and piano lessons from his parents and founded his own trio for guitar, bass and accordion in 1960. From 1960 to 1963 he studied at the Robert Schumann Conservatory Zwickau for his music education. From 1965 to 1969 he continued his studies at the conservatory "Hanns Eisler" in East Berlin. He took lessons in clarinet, saxophone, conducting, composition and arrangement. At the same time he played in the Klaus Lenz band. In 1967 he founded his own jazz band together with pianist Reinhard Lakomy, drummer Wolfgang Zicke Schneider and bassist Hans Schätzke. In 1969, when guitarist Fred Baumert joined the band, he became a quintet from the Günther Fischer Quartet (and the trumpeter in 1979 Hans-Joachim Graswurm to now a sextet). The keyboardist was followed by Reinhard Lakomy Mario Peters. The band gave concerts with Uschi Brüning and Manfred Krug, later with Veronika Fischer and Regine Dobberschütz.

Fischer played the piano, saxophone, flute and clarinet, and also wrote and arranged music for the ensemble. In 1972 he became a lecturer at the Academy of Music "Hanns Eisler" Berlin in the Department of Dance Music for the subjects composition and arranging.

In 1967 he founded a jazz band that still exists today as the Günther Fischer Band. Concert tours led the ensemble through Europe, Asia and Africa. From 1969 to 1970, Armin Mueller-Stahl was also a member of the band with which Günther Fischer worked from 1971 to 1972 for a record production and in a television show.

In the Kammerspiele of the Deutsches Theater in Berlin he performed with Klaus Lenz and his pianist Reinhard Lakomy in the event series "Jazz in the Chamber". He wrote songs for Manfred Krug and Veronika Fischer. His first musical Jack the Ripper premiered in 1989 under the direction of Jürgen Kern and with Katrin Weber in the female lead and Hartwig Rudolz in the male lead role in Celle. Further compositions for theater and ballet were created for the Burgtheater in Vienna and the Schauspielhaus Zürich.

His compositions are stylistically diverse, ranging from funk and soul jazz on beat and rock to songs, which continue in his later film music. He wrote, inter alia, the soundtrack to “Beautiful Gigolo, Poor Gigolo” (West Germany 1978) and “Didi and the Revenge of the Disinherited” (West Germany 1985). Even after the reunification he wrote many film scores, for example for the television series “Unser Lehrer Doktor Specht, Für alle Fälle Stefanie, Familie Dr. Kleist und Der letzte Zeuge.”

In 1993 Manfred Krug Fischer accused the news magazine Der Spiegel of writing reports about him for the Ministry of State Security of the GDR. Fischer denied this accusation; However, other journalistic voices assume that Fischer was led as IM "Günther".

Günther Fischer has lived since 1997 in Cork, Ireland and is the father of singer Laura Fischer, who is the lead singer in the band Laura Fischer & Band and with whom they occasionally perform together.


FISCHER, Günther (Günter Fischer) [6/23/1944, Teplitz-Schönau, Austria-Hungary -     ] – composer, arranger, songwriter, musician (piano, saxophone, flute and clarinet), married to Dr. Petra Fischer, father of singer Laura Fischer, member of the Klaus Lenz band, the Günther Fischer Quartet, the Günther Fischer Band.
Tecumseh* - 1972
Death for Zapata – 1976
    Song: ‘Trini’ sung by Gisela May
Severino* – 1978

[*Score is available on CD]

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