Klaus Bernbacher

Klaus Bernbacher (25 January 1931 – 3 December 2023) was a German conductor, music event manager, broadcasting manager and academic teacher. He co-founded the Tage der Neuen Musik Hannover, a festival for contemporary music, in 1958. He was manager for the broadcaster Radio Bremen from 1962. In Bremen, he was also a cultural politician, a member of the Bremische Bürgerschaft, and an honorary professor at the Hochschule für Künste Bremen.

Life Family, education and musical career Born in Hanover, Bernbacher was the son of a violinist who worked as a chamber musician and in the orchestra of the Staatsoper Hannover. He came into early contact with music through piano lessons and concert visits, listening to music conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler, Herbert von Karajan, Hans Knappertsbusch, Clemens Krauss, Hermann Scherchen, Johannes Schüler and Richard Strauss in rehearsals and performances. He studied music at the Musikhochschule Hannover

Bernbacher was married to , who became a politician of the Green Party, from 1957 until her death in 2013.

Bernbacher died on 3 December 2023, at the age of 92.

Politics Bernbacher was a member of the SPD from the 1950s until 1994, influenced by Kurt Schumacher. In 1995 he joined a Wählergruppe (voters group) (AfB) as a candidate, a group of both dissatisfied SPD members and committed citizens who had not belonged to any party, led by the former savings bank director . The AfB immediately achieved 10.7% of the votes and 12 seats in parliament for the , including Bernbacher. He helped to ensure that culture was included in the constitution as a state objective. The AfB had no seat from 1999.

Other memberships Bremen Landesmusikrat Bremen Chairman of the support association "Musicon Bremen", which supports the construction of a concert hall on the Bürgerweide according to plans by Daniel Libeskind.

Work Klaus Bernbacher, Detlef Müller-Hennig (ed.): Dokumentation 20 Jahre Konzert des Deutschen Musikrates. Bonn 2000.

Awards In 2011, Bernbacher was awarded the Bremische Medaille für Kunst und Wissenschaft (Bremen Medal for Art and Science) for his decades of influential work for the music scene in Germany.