After initially training as an electrician, Gordon Kampe studied musical composition from 1998 to 2000 with Hans-Joachim Hespos and Adriana Hölszky at the Rostock University of Music and Theatre. He then studied under Nicolaus A. Huber at the Folkwang University of the Arts from 2000 to 2003. Kampe also studied music and history at Ruhr-Universität Bochum. From 2004 to 2006, he was a research assistant at the German Research Foundation (DFG) for a project entitled “Musical Theory of Viennese Modernism.” Kampe holds a doctorate in the musicology of twentieth-century fairytale operas (Märchenoper) and was associate researcher at the Folkwang University of the Arts from 2009 to 2017. His research is focused on opera and musical theater, the music of the twenty-first century, and popular music theory.

Kampe is co-editor of the review Seiltanz: Beiträge zur Musik der Gegenwart (Rope Dance: Contributions to Contemporary Music). From 2012 to 2017, he was a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina in Halle, Saxony-Anhalt, for which he was also speaker from 2015 to 2016. Kampe became a substitute teacher of musicology history at the Justus Liebig University Giessen in 2014-2015, before becoming professor of composition and music theory at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg in 2017. Since 2019, he has been a member of the Freie Akademie der Künste Hamburg, a not-for-profit association for artists founded in 1950.

His works have been commissioned and played at Stuttgart ECLAT Festival, Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik, Eight Bridges Festival in Cologne, Ultraschall Berlin, Warsaw Autumn, Musica Nova Helsinki, Staatsoper Stuttgart, Oldenburgisches Staatstheater, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Staatstheater Mainz, and Bayerische Staatsoper by such ensembles and orchestras as Säarbrucken and Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestras, Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg, WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne, Beethoven Orchester Bonn, Ensemble Modern, Klangforum Wien, Ensemble Resonanz, Ensemble Ascolta, Ensemble Recherche, Ensemble KNM Berlin, Ensemble Musikfabrik, oh ton-Ensemble, Ensemble l’Art pour l’Art, Ensemble Adapter, Ensemble LUX:NM, sonic.art saxophone quartet, Decoder Ensemble, RADAR Ensemble, Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, and SWR Vokalensemble.

In his compositional work, Kampe maintains what he calls a “joy of influence.” He draws on various heterogeneous references, from Romantic music to verismo opera, passing through authors such as Petrarch, William Blake, and H.P. Lovecraft. Kampe is also fascinated by the cinematic greats Stanley Kubrick and Akira Kurosawa, as well as visual artists such as Diego Velázquez and Günther Uecker, and even so-called popular culture. His fascination with space can be noted in his works Aldrin-Music (2004) and Aldrin’s Song (2010). His interest in science fiction is particularly visible throughout his catalogue. Ripley Musik I-V (2005-2009) is a reference to Sigourney Weaver’s character in Ridley Scott’s Alien, while Kubrick’s 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey is referenced in HAL (2010) and HAL’s Lullaby (2008). Kampe also extensively references Star Trek in works such as Das Zanthi-Fieber (Zanthi Fever) (2005), Qs Nachtstück (Q’s Night Piece) (2008), Ohne Spock (Without Spock) (2007), Das Barcklay-Syndrom oder Der rote Kreis (Barclay’s Syndrome or the Red Circle) (2006), Picard (2010), and Das Picard Manöver (The Picard Maneuver) (2006). “I try to introduce familiar things in environments where they might become strange once again,” said Kampe. “Extraterrestrials are metaphors for the infiltration and friction of the strange and unexpected.”

Kampe combines these references without looking for any coherence between them and rejecting all hierarchization of taste. X - mit großsem Solo (X - with Great Solo) (2007-2008) and Q’s Night Piece are two examples among many others. The first brings together Otto Dix’s painting Großstadt (Metropolis) (1927-1928), a melancholic freeze frame from a video by the artist Bill Viola, and a passage from one of the interplanetary adventures of Ijon Tichy written by Stanisław Lem. The second amalgamates variations on a song by Dean Martin, extracts of compositions by Hans-Joachim Hespos and Guillaume Dufay, a paragraph from the Deutsche Bundespost’s “General Instructions for Postal and Telecommunication Services,” and a poem by Annette von Droste-Hülshoff. Through this process, Kampe seeks to anchor an aesthetic approach within the experience of everyday life, citing the philosopher Martin Seel: “The land of aesthetics knows no boundaries.”

Awards and study grants (selection)

• Artist-in-residence at the Edenböckhaus cultural center in Munich, 2020
• Eduard Arnhold scholarship, 2019
• Scholarship at Villa Concordia, International House of Artists, Bamberg, 2018
• Schneider-Schott Music Prize, 2016
• The Rome Residency awarded by the German Academy Rome, at Villa Massimo, 2016
• Ernst-von-Siemens Composers’ Prize, 2016
• Scholarship for the SWR Experimental Studio, 2014
• Viola Foundation Walter Witte Composition Prize, 2013
• Composition Prize of the City of Stuttgart, 2007, 2011
• Scholarship for the Cité des Arts de Paris, 2007
• Selected for the International Ensemble Modern Academy, 2004, 2005
• Scholarship at the Berlin Academy of Arts, 2004
• Kunsthaus Ahrenshoop Composition Award, 2002
• Composition Award at the Weimar Spring Festival with Contemporary Music, 2000, 2001
• Konrad Adenauer Foundation Scholarship, 1999-2003
• Composition Award for the 350 years of peace in Westphalia, 1998