Dietmar Loeffler · Chanson

EXIL.
30er-Jahre-Chansons über Flucht, Emigration und Heimweh.

BIOGRAPHY

Dietmar Loeffler is a pianist, composer, director and playwright. He completed his pianistic training at the conservatories in Trossingen with Eugen Frosch, in Hamburg with Volker Banfield, in Paris with Vlado Perlemuter and in the master class of Irwin Gage in Zurich. He was a scholarship holder of the Art Foundation of the State of Baden-Württemberg, the Bosch Foundation, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival and a lecturer at the University of Music Lübeck in the subject of Lied interpretation. In addition to his solo and chamber music activities (with Christiane Edinger and Thomas Goldschmidt, among others), he focused primarily on classical lied and worked with singers such as Camilla Nylund, Sybilla Rubens, Tom Krause, Oliver Widmer and Jochen Kupfer, as well as reciters Angela Winkler, Barbara Auer, Ulrich Tukur and Gerd Westphal. Subsequently, various CD recordings were made, also for Deutsche Grammophon.
In the mid-90s, his artistic work expanded to include productions such as "Dominique Horwitz sings Jaques Brel", "Burghart Klaußner swings Charles Trénet " or the collaboration with Andre Heller for the touring production "Wintergarten". Today he works as musical director, composer, arranger, author and director at numerous German stages, such as the Schauspiel Frankfurt, the Staatstheater Kassel, the Grillotheater Essen, the Schauspielhaus Bochum, the Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg and the Thalia Theater in Hamburg.
The development of creative material has been the focus of his artistic work since 2002. For the Schauspielhaus Bremen he conceived the scenic song evening "All Inclusive", in the same year as the opening of the Jewish Culture Days Berlin the 30s revue "Ein Stück vom Himmel". The prominent premiere with Katja Riemann, Imogen Kogge, Anika Mauer, Natalia Wörner, Burghart Klaußner and Max Hopp took place at the Deutsches Theater Berlin and became a repertory piece there. 
In 2006, the premiere of his comedy "Männerbeschaffungsmaßnahmen" at Schauspiel Frankfurt, directed by himself, was awarded the Hessian Audience Prize and has been performed over 1100 times throughout Germany. For the Hamburger Kammerspiele he wrote and directed the Italo-comedy "Pasta e Basta" in 2009 and "Sylt - ein Irrtum Gottes?" in 2012.
With "Pasta e Basta" Dietmar Loeffler succeeded in developing an independent genre between operetta and drama, which could be called a pocket musical. The boulevardesque tone is based on a self-contained story in which text, scene and song have equal parts. Socio-political issues form the basis of the content. Other examples include: The family drama "Mama hat den Blues und Papa möchte feiern" (Theater Philharmonie Thüringen); the farce about practices of the entertainment industry "Der Schlagerexorzist" (Schlossparktheater Berlin); the problem zone musical "Bauch Beine Po" (Stadttheater Schaffhausen); the musical fantasy "Die große Freiheit" (The Great Freedom), which is dedicated to the theme of flight and musically combines Orient and Occident (Hamburger Theaterschiff).
The Ufa classic "Die Drei von der Tankstelle" premiered in 2019 in Loeffler's new text version at Theater Fürth. With "Die Winterreise des jungen Werther" (Stadttheater Schaffhausen), he combines two epochal works - Schubert's "Winterreise" with Goethe's "Die Leiden des jungen Werther" - to create a stage drama that examines the question of Werther's supposed guilt for his suicide.
Dietmar Loeffler collaborates on his plays with stage personalities such as Ulla Meinecke, Ella Endlich, Pe Werner, Jasmin Wagner, Viola von der Burg, Tommaso Cacciapuoti, Tim Grobe, Stephan Schad and Peter Jordan. He has formed a permanent duo with cabaret artist Michael Frowin since 2016. As a composer Dietmar Loeffler wrote the music for numerous theater productions such as "Anna Karenina" (awarded 1st prize by INTHEGA), "Scherz, Satire, Ironie und tiefere Bedeutung" (Schauspiel Frankfurt), "Ambrosia"(Grillo-Theater Essen) and "Szenen einer Ehe" (Komödie am Ku'damm).

Dietmar Loeffler is married, has three children, six grandchildren (so far) and a dog.