Ulrich Sommerlatte

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Ulrich Sommerlatte (born October 21, 1914 in Berlin ; † November 11, 2002 in Tegernsee ) was a German composer , arranger and conductor .

biography

Ulrich Sommerlatte grew up in the Berlin district of Wilmersdorf . After graduating from high school in 1933, he began to study medicine at his father's request. But after just two semesters, he dropped out again. He enrolled at the University of Music in Berlin and began studying conducting, composition and clarinet. Musically, he was already influenced by his youth, when he played the violin and piano with his parents. In 1936, at the age of 22, Sommerlatte became Kapellmeister of the Lower Saxony State Orchestra and director of the Hanover Madrigal Association. After a year and more than 250 assignments as a conductor in Bad Pyrmont , he was drafted into the Wehrmacht in Hameln in 1937 due to preparations for war. He played the clarinet with Musikkorps No. 74, where he made it up to the corps leader, and was transferred to the Eastern Front in 1939 . During a six-month exemption in 1942 he was able to catch up on his exams in Wilhelm Furtwängler's master class . He then experienced the end of the war in English captivity.

While he was in the camp, he founded a camp orchestra, which not only gave him access to sheet music from American big bands , but also earned him a reputation among the Americans, which led to his continued employment as a musician after his imprisonment. So he soon arranged for the dance orchestra Friedrich Hohmann from SWF and the orchestra Harry Hermann from NWDR . In addition to instrumentation for film composers such as Werner Bochmann , Franz Grothe , Peter Igelhoff , Gerhard Winkler and Ralph Maria Siegel , he began composing film music himself in the mid-1950s. Sommerlatte composed and arranged regularly until the early 1960s. It wasn't until a heart attack in 1963 that he had to stop arranging.

Instead, he devoted himself more to composing and founded his own music publishing company in Schliersee , his adopted home in Bavaria , where he had lived since 1949. He also campaigned for the further emancipation of popular music and began experimenting with electronic music and progressive rock in the late 1970s. From 1991 he increasingly withdrew from music. So he ended his job in the Bavarian Radio Council, which had been going on since 1972, and sold his publishing house. He was also involved with GEMA for over 50 years , including as a member of the board.

Sommerlatte died on November 11, 2002 at the age of 88 with his family. He had lived with his daughter in Tegernsee since 1981.

Filmography (selection)

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personal data
SURNAME Sommerlatte, Ulrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German composer, arranger and conductor
DATE OF BIRTH October 21, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin , Germany
DATE OF DEATH November 11, 2002
Place of death Tegernsee