The Department of Music is pleased to share that Hans Thomalla has been named the Helen A. Regenstein Professor in the Department of Music and the College.
Thomalla is one of thirty-one professors across The University to have received distinguished service professorships or named professorships.
A composer of music for the stage, Thomalla has written four operas: Fremd performed by the Stuttgart Opera in 2011; Kaspar Hauser premiered at the Freiburg and Augsburg Opera in 2016; Dark Spring performed at the Mannheim Opera in 2020; and Dark Fall premiered at the Mannheim Opera in 2024. Additionally, he has written music for many ensembles and soloists, including the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the Münchener Philharmoniker, SWR- and SR-Radiosinfonieorchester, The Crossing, Talea, ICE, Ensemble Modern, Musikfabrik, Ensemble Recherche, Arditti Quartet, Spektral Quartet, Nicolas Hodges, Irvine Arditti and Sarah Sun.
Among many awards and fellowships, Thomalla received the Kranichsteiner Musikpreis, the Composer Prize of the Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung, the Christoph Delz Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Koussevitsky Commission. During the academic year 2014‒2015, he was a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, and in 2024‒2025, he is a fellow at the German Academy Villa Massimo in Rome. Thomalla is the co-founder of the Chicago-based record label Sideband Records.