I am very saddened to share the news that the former Kraftwerk drummer Klaus Dinger has recently died at the age of just 61 due to heart failure. He passed on March 21st, just a few days before his 62nd birthday, although the news was only recently released to the public.

Dinger, who started his musical career as a replacement for Andreas Hohmann as the drummer for Kraftwerk’s self-titled debut album, is most famous for his motorik style of drumming. After the Kraftwerk’s first album, he left to form another very famous German “krautrock” band, Neu! with another former Kraftwerk member Michael Rother and their producer Conny Plank. Then, after Neu! disbanded in 1975, Dinger went on to perform in a few other bands including La Düsseldorf and La! Neu?

Klaus was a truly foreward-looking musician and helped make history with the music he was a part of. He will surely be missed by many.

Karlheinz Stockhausen, one of the most innovative and controversial composers of our time, died on December 5th at the age of 79. Stockhausen was born in 1928 and started his musical career in the late 1940s. Almost immediately, his work was seen as being very prolific and he gained quite a reputation for his experimental “sound art” compositions. His music influenced many of the world’s greatest musicians including The Beatles, who actually included Stockhausen on the cover of their Sergeant Pepper album.

In total, Karlheinz Stockhausen finished 362 works during his lifetime. Among them is the world’s longest opera, “Licht”, which lasts for 29 hours. He also created one of the most technically complicated pieces ever written, the Helikopter Quartett, in which a string quartet flies in 4 separate helicopters above the audience, playing together with the helicopter blades as a fifth instrument.

I have no doubt that musicians for decades to come will discover and be amazed by the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen.

You can listen to some of his works on Stockhausen.org.