Artist

Martin Böhmer

Last updated: 5 days ago

Hi, I’m Martin! I write my pieces in Leipzig, in a walk-through room between the hallway and the balcony. A room you really just pass through. I don’t have a studio. In the summer, the door to the courtyard is open. Sometimes children play downstairs, and you can only hear the street as a background hum. It’s wonderful.

Actually, everything I write comes to life on a felted piano. This is where I feel most at home. I play without a fixed tempo, without pressure. And I try, just a little bit, to stretch out time, to savor the moment for as long as I possibly can. And to express my feelings and emotions that I otherwise couldn’t put into words.

I came to the piano late and via a roundabout route. First, there were years of playing the drums and a youth in which I expressed myself more through color and graffiti pieces on trains than through sounds. My first finished piece is called “gisela,” after my grandmother. She introduced me to music, but sadly she never got to hear the finished piece. But I’m sure that, no matter where she is right now, she has a way to stream it.

I write every piece for myself first. The fact that people then find something completely different in it than I do—a memory, an image, a quiet moment in the day—is what I love most about it and gives me an incredibly fulfilling feeling. Many people listen to this music in the background while working or falling asleep. And that’s probably the nicest compliment I could imagine.

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