Peter Michael Hamel

Peter Michael Hamel is a German composer and electroacoustic musician behind the 1972/73 Vertigo titles Hamel and The Voice of Silence, followed by the 1977 Wergo release Nada. A further string of albums appeared on Kuckuck during the 1980s.

Background

Peter Michael Hamel was born July 15, 1947, in Munich, the first child of actor and director Kurt Peter Hamel and actress and stage designer Gisela Hillen Hinrichs. From age five, he took piano lessons from his great-aunt, Amalie Jensen-Pletsch. Hamel later studied violin, cello, horn, organ, choir, and Gregorian chant. As a boy, Hamel composed stage and screen music for his father’s productions.

Hamel lived in Munich through 1959, then enrolled five years at the archiepiscopal St. Bernhard Gymnasium in Rastatt. While enrolled, he saw John Coltrane in Baden-Baden through Joachim-Ernst Berendt’s SWF series Jazz – Gehört und Gesehen. In the summer of 1964, he visited an uncle in Istanbul, where he picked up on the drone modes of Iraqi maqam and Indian raga. 

In 1966, Hamel completed the Pestalozzi-Gymnasium Abitur and entered eighteen months of compulsory military service. Hamel spent off-duty evenings in jazz and folk clubs, where he heard modern jazz beside Latin American music shaped by samba. From 1968 to 1970, Hamel studied composition with Günter Bialas at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Munich. 

Early Activity

From 1969, Hamel joined Josef Anton Riedl on multimedia projects and tested analogue electronics and early computer systems. He also worked in the electronic studio of Musikhochschule tonmeister Ulrich Kraus and studied compositional methods associated with John Cage, Morton Feldman, Terry Riley, Luc Ferrari, and Carl Orff.

Hamel attended Karlheinz Stockhausen seminars in Darmstadt. In West Berlin, he spent three months with Feldman and responded to the sparse repetition of Christian Wolff in Cambridge. A John Tilbury performance of Sonatas and Interludes by Cage led Hamel to place erasers among piano strings and use prepared piano as a percussion source.

In 1970, Hamel formed an open-improvisation unit with Argentine luthier Roberto Détrée, Munich Philharmonic oboist Robert Eliscu, and violinist-violist Ulrich Stranz; American conguero Cotch Black also took part in the formative sessions. The musicians first used Syn, then adopted Between for a group positioned among chamber music, jazz, electronics, and non-Western forms.

Peter Hanser-Strecker of Schott/Wergo produced the 1971 Between debut Einstieg and asked the group for compact pieces suitable for radio in place of twenty-minute improvisations. Hamel began solo performances that year on piano, organ, voice, and live electronics. Hanser-Strecker then connected Hamel with Vertigo representative Jimmy Beuks alongside Agitation Free. Vertigo signed Hamel for the self-titled double LP that appeared in 1972.

Discography:

• Hamel (1972)
• The Voice of Silence (1973)
• “Other Voices, Other Rooms” (7″, 1974)
• Buddhist Meditation East-West (1975)
• Nada (1977)
• Colours of Time (1980)
• Bardo (1981)
• Transition (1983)
• Organum (1986)

Sources

• Peter Michael Hamel interview. Firsthand account covering childhood, Rastatt schooling, the Istanbul trip, early jazz exposure, Riedl, Between, the Wergo sessions, and the Hanser-Strecker/Vertigo connection. (It’s Psychedelic Baby Magazine)
• Peter Michael Hamel: Komponisten in Bayern, Band 61. Detailed biographical study and extended Hamel interview covering family background, Büchtger, military service, Munich jazz and folk clubs, “continuous creation,” Bialas, Kraus, Riedl, Feldman, prepared piano, and the start of solo performance. (Allitera Verlag PDF preview)
• Peter Michael Hamel — Biographie. Publisher chronology confirming instrumental training, Büchtger and Bialas studies, conducting and theory teachers, academic subjects, Riedl-era collaborations, Between, and solo performance from 1971. (Bärenreiter)
• Between — Profile. Schott account of the Munich formation, 1970 core lineup, later additions, and the origin of the Between name. (Schott Music)
• Ferne Ziele – Teil 5 – Michael Hoenig. Hoenig account of Hamel entering the Agitation Free circle and directing the band toward Schott, Music Factory, Philips/Vertigo, and Peter Hanser-Strecker. (Bernd Kistenmacher)
• Peter Michael Hamel — MusicBrainz. Discography confirming Hamel as the first solo album in 1972. (MusicBrainz)