Biography - Achim Bornhoeft

Achim Christian Bornhoeft was born on 3 November 1966 in Essen, Germany. From 1984 to 1986 he studied piano and music theory under Prof. Gerhard Lisken. After his final school examinations in 1986 he continued his piano education with Heidi Kommerell. In 1988 he began to study composition under Prof. Nicolaus A. Huber and electronic composition under Prof. Dirk Reith at the Folkwang Academy in Essen, Germany where he passed his Finals in composition in 1994. In 1990 he received first prize in a composition competition run by the CNM and the Felix Mendelsohn Bartholdy Award, 1991 he won the first prize in the National Competition of German Music Academies and in 1993 the Folkwang Prize. Until 1996 Achim Bornhoeft worked with the choreographers Stefan Hilterhaus, Olimpia Scardi and Wanda Golonka, whose dance productions have been performed all over Europe. After the composition finals he won a DAAD scholarship for the Computer Center for Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) at Stanford University. Between 1996 and 2005 Achim Bornhoeft has been a lecturer at the Folkwang Academy and the Universities of Duisburg and Tuebingen. 1998 he received the composers scholarship from the Heinrich-Strobel-Stiftung and produced two full-length choreographies with his own company. In 2001 he was artist in residence at the Center for Art an Media (ZKM), Karlsruhe, Germany where he founded the SUMTONE label together with the composers Michael Edwards and Ludger Bruemmer. As a visual artist he got a scholarship to work on his sound sculpture "Orplid und Schilf" at the Mummelsee, Germany in 2003. 2007 he assumed the project management for "Jugend Komponiert", a workshop for young composers organized by the Landesmusikrat Baden-Wuerttemberg. Currently Achim Bornhoeft is lecturer for electonic composition and director of the Studio for Electronic Music (SEM) at the Mozarteum, Salzburg.