Thomas Lauck Short biography Thomas Lauck was born in Strasbourg in 1943. He regards his most important instructors to be the nature that remains unspoiled by mankind, with its stones, plants and animals. His veneration belongs to the great masters of music and of painting, sculpture, architecture and poetry. After completing his medical studies in Freiburg im Breisgau between 1963 and 1968, Lauck proceeded to attain certification as an ophthalmologist between 1970 and 1975 and ran his own practice between 1975 and 1999. Lauck studied composition with Klaus Huber in Basel between 1971 and 1972. The year 1974 marked the first exhibition of his material pictures in a gallery in Heidelberg. In 1975-76, Lauck attended courses in live electronics with Hans-Peter Haller at the SWF Experimentalstudio of the Heinrich Strobel Foundation (today the SWR Experimentalstudio). In the years to follow, he attended compositional courses at the City of Basle Music Academy with Dieter Schnebel, Kazimierz Serocki and Mauricio Kagel and later in Darmstadt with Karlheinz Stockhausen. Lauck considers himself, however, to be self-taught. He is recipient of a number of compositional prizes, among them those of the 1974 Hitzacker Summer Music Festival and the 1977 Gaudeamus Prize (Bilthoven, Amsterdam). In 1999-2009, Lauck was an auditor at the University of Basel in the subjects of musicology and art history. Lauck’s works have been broadcast and performed by first-rate soloists and ensemble across Europe and the world, not least on tours throughout Southeast Asia and South America. Lauck’s body of works, which particularly focuses on the genre of chamber music for the broadest range of instrumentations, also encompasses vocal music as well as stage music, one orchestral work and works with live electronics. The majority of Lauck’s works are published by the G. Ricordi & Co. Munich.