Hansjakob Heldstab: Diabelli-Contest 2016

Hansjakob Heldstab I was born in Davos in 1962, where I first received recorder, then piano and finally organ lessons. For a few years I worked as an organist in various churches in the village and the surrounding area and finally got the organist diploma.

I later studied biology in Zurich, graduated in zoology and general botany and now work in a small institute in the field of molecular biology and electrophysiology.

My compositional role models are the masters of the Baroque and Classical periods (J. S. Bach, the representatives of the North German Organ School and W. A. ​​Mozart). I couldn't and can't get used to the atonal or roughly dissonant sounds of contemporary “serious music”, which is why I consciously only use the traditional tonality.

It has struck me for a long time that female composers - especially in the earlier epochs of music history - are very rare, which is why I specifically search for pieces of music of all kinds in the local music library and on the Internet, by female composers from the Renaissance and Baroque periods and the classical. A selection of these is available under “Notation” or “Editing” in Musicalion.

In addition to biology, my other interests are the natural sciences in general, skiing, traveling, computers and the Internet, as well as aquaristics.