born in Karlsruhe Germany
1959 Emigration to Australia……odd jobs as a means of reliable income. Aquisition of a – then rather crude – tape recording machine. Experimenting with the “ hard and soft edges of reverberating metal „as an acute observation of the unpredictable non- lyrical as well as poetic aspects of random sound events. These studies are carried on into the late nineteen sixties.
1960- 1963 Studies at Savitzkys Actors School Melbourne….then member of an Itinerant Theatre Group……original stage productions, Musical Theatre etc.
1966- 1971 Guitar studies with Antonio Losada ……music theory with Don Andrews at Sydney Conservatory.
1972 Return to Europe …..further guitar studies with Mario Sicca at the Staatliche Musikhochschule Karlsruhe …..then composition with Werner Eugen Velte and member of his Group for Creative Music.
First ventures in composition ……most of these works lost…..since 1978 active as freelance composer.
Fellowships: Kunststiftung Baden Württemberg, Heinrich Strobel Stiftung des SWF, Rolf Liebermann Foundation
Lectures, Concerts: Internationale Ferienkurse Darmstadt 1982-86, Universities of Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra 1993, Goethe Institute Kyoto 1994, University of Minnesota 2013, University of Leeds 2017
His works were performed at numerous Festivals for New Music, among those Steirischer Herbst, Klangspuren Schwaz, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Musica Viva, Wittener Tage für Neue Musik, Huddersfield Festival, Ultraschall und Maerz Musik, Musica Strasbourg, Festival de La Rochelle, Festival Montepulciano etc.
Volker Heyn is currently working on TRANSFER, a project for Ensemble and Tape.
This work is inspired by scenes out of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and John Dos Passos‘ Manhattan Transfer.