composer pianist university professor
Schmidt studied music at the conservatorium in Dortmund, at the Folkwang Hochschule in Essen, the Mozarteum in Salzburg, and he studied composition in Karlheinz Stockhausen"s Cologne Courses for New Music at the Rheinische Musikschule, Cologne.
He started work mainly as a conductor and performed in concerts with the Bochum Symphony, the Vienna Symphony and the Dortmund Ensemble for New Music, which he founded in 1962. Schmidt also worked as Kapellmeister at the Theater Aachen, as docent for musical theatre and chanson at the Schauspielschule Bochum drama school, and as concert pianist. In 1968 Schmidt founded the experimental krautrock band Can with Holger Czukay, Michael Karoli and Jaki Liebezeit.
Schmidt served as Can"s keyboardist until the group"s disbandment in 1979.
He participated in both reunions of Can, in 1986 and 1991. Schmidt has scored more than 40 films and television programs, including Knife in the Head (1978) and Palermo Shooting (2008).
He has recorded a few solo albums and written an opera, Gormenghast, based on Mervyn Peake"s Gormenghast Trilogy. Gormenghast premiered at the Opernhaus Wuppertal in 1998.
Excerpts from the work were released on Spoon Records in 1999.
As of 2008, Schmidt lives in Southern France. His interests outside music include cooking. In 2015 he received the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Chevalier).
