Boris Hauf is a Berlin-based musician, composer, and curator whose work spans electronica, free jazz, avant-garde new music, experimental rock, film scoring, and interdisciplinary performance. Since the mid-1990s, he has released more than 50 albums and composed music for dance, film, and ensembles such as the Janus Ensemble and the Arditti Quartet.
As a curator, Hauf has developed innovative concert formats and festivals, including Chicago Sound Map, Playdate, and Cinesthesia. In 2015, he founded Shameless, an independent record label with a political and ecological focus.
Hauf’s collaborations explore the intersections of music, performance, and education. He has taught at the Universität der Künste Berlin, where he integrates generative tools and interdisciplinary approaches into his work. He also teaches music at a primary school in Berlin.
Currently, Hauf tours internationally with his synth-driven solo project CLARK, performs with CLARK here dust and hair alongside Litó Walkey, and plays keyboards and sax with the Austrian band Naked Lunch.
Artist’s Statement
My musical practice explores the intersections of improvisation, composition, and interdisciplinary collaboration, spanning genres from free jazz and avant-garde new music to experimental electronic and rock forms. Since the mid-1990s, I have released approximately 50 albums, composed music for over 40 performance and dance works, 12 ensembles, and 10 feature films. I have also curated festivals, concert series, and large-scale orchestral events.
Over the years, my work has traversed a wide spectrum of styles: the free jazz and avant-garde music of my early explorations led to reductionist experimental electric-acoustic improvisation with my group efzeg in Vienna in the early 2000s. I played Chicago alt-punk (Lozenge) and industrial noise (Fuckhead); explored experimental drone rock (TUB, Half Wolf), indie-rock (Naked Lunch), and cosmic blues drones tinged with kraut-psych (Owl & Mack); and ventured into doom jazz (The Peeled Eye), post-industrial sci-fi electronica (CLARK), film scoring, sound design, and contemporary ensemble music (Janus Ensemble, Arditti Quartet). Each project represents an investigation into texture, timbre, and the dynamic tension between structure and spontaneity.
Collaboration has always been central to my practice. Longstanding partnerships within the performing arts allow me to explore interdisciplinary approaches and expand the possibilities of music in dialogue with other art forms. Developing generative tools for creative processes has been a core focus of my pedagogic work across universities in Europe and the USA. Since 2024, I also teach music at a primary school in Berlin. My curatorial projects extend personal research into larger formats: exploring improvisation and composition across geographies in Chicago Sound Map, exposing audiences of all ages to diverse musical styles through Playdate, and challenging conventional concert experiences with Cinesthesia. In 2015, together with Vancouver-based designer Julian Lars Gosper, I founded the record label Shameless to further experimental music practices, integrating social, political, and ecological concerns.
Blurring the boundaries between improvisation and composition, as well as between performance, collaboration, and education, my work encourages both myself and audiences to experience music in unexpected, transformative ways, investigating the interplay of freedom, structure, and sonic exploration across multiple artistic contexts.
