Erwin Lehn

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Erwin Lehn, 1946
Erwin Lehn, 2005

Erwin Lehn (born June 8, 1919 in Grünstadt , Palatinate , † March 20, 2010 in Stuttgart ) was a German musician and orchestra conductor.

Life

Lehn attended the municipal music school in Peine and received violin , piano and clarinet lessons , but did not complete any music studies. His musical career began in 1945 as a pianist and arranger in the Radio Berlin Dance Orchestra directed by Michael Jary , which he directed from 1947 to 1951 together with Horst Kudritzki . The first recordings were made here, with Helmut Zacharias and Walter Dobschinski , among others .

On April 1, 1951, he founded the Südfunk-Tanzorchester des Süddeutschen Rundfunks (SDR) in Stuttgart , which he directed until 1992. It developed from a radio band into a modern swinging big band within a short time : Erwin Lehn and his Südfunk-Tanzorchester . In addition to Kurt Edelhagen's band at Südwestfunk , the Südfunk-Tanzorchester became one of the leading swing big bands in the Federal Republic of Germany in the following years. Numerous guest appearances by well-known jazz musicians from the 1950s and 1960s testify to the recognition that the orchestra leader enjoyed in the professional world. Some of its members later founded their own orchestras, including a. Horst Jankowski , Peter Herbolzheimer , Klaus Weiss and Ernst Mosch .

Together with Dieter Zimmerle and Wolfram Röhrig , Lehn founded the program Treffpunkt Jazz for the SDR in 1955 . There Lehn played with international jazz greats such as Miles Davis , Benny Goodman , Stan Getz , Lester Young , Chick Corea and Chet Baker .

Lehn, however, had no reservations about good light music outside of jazz. This is proven by the collaboration with many greats in this genre such as Alice Babs , Josephine Baker , Bibi Johns , Greetje Kauffeld , Angelina Monti , Marika Rökk , Anneliese Rothenberger , Caterina Valente , Peter Alexander , Bully Buhlan , Udo Jürgens and Bill Ramsey . He composed and wrote numerous hits and wrote the music for more than 50 feature films . He made numerous concert tours with Paul Kuhn and Max Greger . With his Südfunk-Tanzorchester he was also responsible for the musical setting in numerous entertainment programs by Hans Rosenthal ( Alone against everyone , fun must be , ask me what ) in the broadcasting area of ​​the Süddeutscher Rundfunk.

In 1992 Lehn gave up the leadership of the orchestra, which has since performed with changing conductors and was renamed SWR Big Band in 1998 as part of the merger of SWF and SDR .

In 1976 Lehn took over the management of the Big Band at the Stuttgart Music Academy , where he was also appointed honorary professor in 1985 , and thereby made great contributions to promoting young musicians. For this he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit on ribbon on April 27, 1982 . In 1997 he handed over the leadership of the band to Bernd Konrad .

Erwin Lehn was honored with the German Jazz Trophy in 2001 for his life's work . He was an avowed fan of the Stuttgarter Kickers , for whose club song he wrote the music.

literature

  • Bernd Meyer-Rähnitz, Frank Oehme, Joachim Schütte: The "Eternal Friend" - Eterna and Amiga; The discography of the shellac records (1947–1961) , Albis International Bibliophilen-Verlag, Dresden-Ústí 2006, ISBN 80-86971-10-4

Web links

Commons : Erwin Lehn  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Big-Band of the Musikhochschule Stuttgart ( Memento from November 26, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on March 26, 2010
  2. ↑ Office of the Federal President
personal data
SURNAME Lehn, Erwin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German musician and orchestra leader
DATE OF BIRTH June 8, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Grünstadt , Palatinate
DATE OF DEATH March 20, 2010
Place of death Stuttgart