User:Balalaika 500/sandbox

Dieter Hauptmann
Dieter Hauptmann (born January 1942 in Breslau/Vroclav, then Germany, now Poland) is a German born musician, bandleader, instrument builder and composer now living in Australia. He has been active in many styles, from playing classical cello concerts in high school concerts in Frankfurt as a teenager, to Russian balalaika music, Greek bouzouki music and Balkan beat, to school musicals and choir songs. His first ensembles were instrumental and called Balalaika Ensemble Troika (featured on CBS albums), Balalaika Ensemble Tschaika, then Tschaika Cossacks when vocalists and dancers came in. In 1983 he changed countries and migrated to Australia, helped by many people he had met on the Australian Arts Council tours. As music creation turned more and more digital he passed on his knowledge to the next generation in courses at a special music school, Adelaide's Marryatville High School, while building up various balalaika groups and teaching Russian emigré children the music from their ancestors' lands at the local St. Nicholas church. Dieter is also an instrument builder and built well over 100 balalaikas and domras. He founded the Frankfurt music pub 'Balalaika' in 1968.

Early Life
Dieter's father was a pharmacist and his mother a homemaker; he had an older sister. In 1946 the family (sister, mother, and grandmother, but without their father who was in a British prisoner of war camp) set out north/west on foot because Poland had been given the Breslau area in the Yalta Conference. They were part of millions of displaced persons who took two years to arrive in Germany proper, the Harz Mountains, where his father joined them. After the father had a run-in with the communist East German authorities the family fled via West Berlin to West Germany and settled in Frankfurt/Main.

Career
The start of Dieter's music education was his father's 'dictate' that Dieter should learn the cello and his sister the violin as the father liked to play the flute in a trio. Dieter became quite good with his cello and featured as soloist in High School concerts. Since the tenor banjo has the same tuning as the cello, Dieter then played banjo in a skiffle band. There he was spotted by a Don Cossacks' son (A. Popowkin) as having possibly potential for Russian balalaika and domra music. He learned the playing techniques and the songs while working in a pharmacy, as a journalist/photographer, and in a printing house. After a shortlived marriage the Balalaika Ensemble Troika was born and they played in the restaurant Wolga in Frankfurt. They participated in the famous Burg Waldeck Festivals. At that time Dieter also got married to a former AP journalist, Ally Hauptmann-Gurski, a marriage that lasted the distance. In the Wolga Restaurant the not so happy, late opera singer Iwan Refroff discovered them as accompanists for gala shows. Dieter played on over 20 albums, with his group, with others, or alone, in many countries. A song written for Iwan Rebroff under the pen name Kapitanoff 'The drunken Monk' ('Der trunkene Pope' is the original German title) was very successful, later included in a Carnegie Hall concert live recording. It was also picked up by the Finn Viktor Klimenko and the Bulgarian Boris Rubashkin.

For the album 'Entlang der Wolga' the 'Association française de la musique récréative' awarded Dieter's Balalaika Ensemble Tschaïka a silver medal, 'Cithare d'argent'. Dieter also played the Greek bouzouki and accompanied the Greek singer Vicky Leandros, and French Mireille Matthieu in live TV broadcasts.

After successful tours in the UK and Ireland, the Australian Arts Council arranged a concert tour through Australia in 1975 and 1977. Over the years Dieter's Troika and Tschaika Groups groups had between 3 and 7 members. During the 1977 Arts Council tour Dieter and his wife Ally (originally Almuth) decided to prepare for migrating to Australia which they did in 1983.

In Australia Dieter worked in tourism photography and then for a High School when he wrote several school musicals: Battle of the Bands (High School) (1988). One of the songs (Call on me when you're lonely) was runner up in the international Pater Awards. Dumbling (1992) was a pantomime for primary school children. 'This Woman' (1991) is a musical about the life of now Saint Mary MacKillop musical (Signature tune "In All things Love").

In 2002 he returned to Russian music, founded, and led the Adelaide Balalaikas and then the Adelaide Junior Balalaikas who were invited to the 2017 Sevastopol Festival where they won first prize with Dieter's composition Golos Nari.

In 2019 Dieter was diagnosed with cancer.

Craftsmanship
At the time when Dieter first started out with Russian music, the ensemble of older migrants was dissolved but they did not want to part with their instruments. Dieter suggested to his mate who wanted to play bass balalaika that they should build instruments because at the height of the cold war (1964/65) instruments were not available. With a quickly knocked up prototype Dieter proved that they should be able to do it if they put their minds to it. They built two sets of instruments as a precaution in case there'd be a disagreement, which happened in 1968. After the first Australian tour, Dieter copied the mother of pearl inlays (butterfly) of a traditional balalaika for all balalaikas of the Tschaika Cossacks group. Later in Australia he built more than 100 instruments, some of which were sold to the four corners of the globe.