Carlos Veerhoff

Carlos Enrique Veerhoff (3 June 1926 in Buenos Aires – 18 February 2011 in Murnau) was an Argentine-born German composer of classical music. Carlos Veerhoff Germanized his second forename later and varied first between "Heiner" and "Heinrich", but later settled on "Carlos Heinrich Veerhoff".

Carlos Enrique Veerhoff was born with his twin brother Wolfgang Otto as premature infants. Their father could only find a hospital with an incubator two days later, so that the birth date in the birth certificate is 5 June 1926. His father Heinrich Veerhoff was German and the head of an own company in Buenos Aires. His mother Karla Veerhoff was a violinist and the daughter of conductor Karl Panzner and singer Ida Panzner.

The Veerhoff family moved back to Germany in 1930 due to a job change by the father. In 1933, the family moved on to South Africa. The countryside and the way of living in Africa had a great impact on the young Carlos Veerhoff, and these impressions found their way into several compositions of his later years. Another experience in South Africa was important for him as well: In 1935, the first South African airline was founded, and the young Carlos got the opportunity to take part at a pleasure flight. Afterwards, he developed an enormous interest in flight engineering, which was only replaced later by music. But Carlos Veerhoff kept his love of natural science his whole life.

After the return of the Veerhoff family to Germany in 1935, Carlos started to attend orchestral and chamber music concerts. Also, the music played at home - his father was a good pianist and his mother a professional violinist - contributed to his future interest in classical music. This development culminated in Carlos deciding at the age of 15 to become a composer. At that time, he took his first lesson in composition theory, and in 1942 he became a student at the Musisches Gymnasium in Frankfurt am Main.

After a six-day stint as a soldier in World War II in which he was injured, Carlos Veerhoff continued his composition studies at the Universität der Künste Berlin with Hermann Grabner and later privately with Kurt Thomas and got piano lessons from Walter Gieseking. During an internment in Düsseldorf in 1946, he studied with Walter Braunfels (composition) and Günter Wand (conducting) at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln. In 1947, Carlos Veerhoff moved to Argentina and taught music theory at the University of San Miguel de Tucumán at the Departemento Musical, which was newly founded by Ernst von Dohnányi. He also took conducting lessons from Hermann Scherchen in Buenos Aires during this period.

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