Franz Hauk

Franz Hauk has multiple careers as an organist, choir director, educator, and musicologist. He has been prominent in the rediscovery of composer Simon Mayr, founding the Simon Mayr Choir to explore his music, and has recorded widely as both an organist and conductor. Hauk was born in 1955 in Neuburg an der Donau in Germany's Bavaria region. He studied piano, organ, and church music in high school and went on to the Musikhochschule München and for further studies in Salzburg, Austria. He returned to Munich for a master's degree in 1981 and, after winning several awards, earned his doctorate in 1988 for a thesis on church music in that city in the early 19th century. He has continued to write on such topics as 19th century performance practice and the editing of manuscripts of that time for performance. Hauk began to play the magnificent organ at the Liebfrauenmünster Cathedral in the Munich suburb of Ingolstadt, founded an "Organ Matinees at 12" series there in 1990, and established other organ events, including the International Ingolstandt Organ Days at other churches besides his own. He has held various positions at the cathedral, including choir director from 1995 and artistic director until 2021. Hauk has toured both Europe and the U.S. as an organist. In 1996, Hauk made his recording debut on the Carlton Classics label, appearing on a Leipzig Symphony Orchestra album of music by Alexandre Guilmant. In 2003, he founded the Simon Mayr Chor ("Simon Mayr Choir"), dedicated to the music of that neglected German composer, and he continues to perform and record with that group. Hauk is particularly notable for his vigorous recording career. He has appeared on recordings as both an organist and choir director. Some of those were made with the Simon Mayr Chor, where he recorded many world premieres of Mayr's music. Hauk has recorded prolifically for Guild and Naxos, releasing as many as five albums in a single year. In 2020, he and the Simon Mayr Chor issued a recording of Mayr's Mass in E flat major on Naxos, returning on that label with several more albums of Mayr's music during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2023, he led the early music group Concerto de Bassus on a Naxos recording of Antonio Sacchini's oratorio L'abbandono delle ricchezze di S. Filippo Neri. Hauk is on the faculty at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Munich. ~ James Manheim, Rovi