Burkhard Beins

born 1964 in Lower Saxony, lives in Berlin since 1995. As a composer-performer working in the fields of experimental music and sound art he is known for his definitive use of percussion in combination with selected sound objects. Furthermore, he works with live-electronics/analog synthesizers, plays bass guitar, and has conceived several sound installations. 

Since the late 1980s he is performing at internationally renowned venues and festivals throughout Europe, America, Australia and Asia as diverse as the LMC Festival (London), Int. Ferienkurse (Darmstadt), SKIF (St. Petersburg), Musiktage (Donaueschingen), Musique Action (Nancy), Choppa Festival (Singapore), Cave 12 (Geneva), HCMF (Huddersfield), The Now now (Sydney), ZKM (Karlsruhe), Cafe OTO (London), Kaleidophon (Ulrichsberg), Kid Ailack Music Hall (Tokyo), DOM (Moscow), Gaudeamus Festival (Amsterdam), Liquid Architecture (Australia), Meteo (Mulhouse), Taktlos (CH), Berghain (Berlin), Konfrontationen (Nickelsdorf), Serralves and Sonoscopia (Porto), Wien Modern (Vienna), MoMA (New York), New Music Festival (Hanoi), FILEC (Cuernavaca), Irtijal (Beirut), KLEX (Kuala Lumpur), or Maerzmusik (Berlin). 

Alongside his solo work he is a member of diverse ensembles like Sawt Out, Polwechsel, Trio Sowari, Slurge, Zone Null, and Splitter Orchester and also works with composer-performers such as Sven-Åke Johansson, Andrea Neumann, Keith Rowe, Emilio Gordoa, Mariá Portugal, Axel Dörner, Chris Abrahams, Lotte Anker, Marta Zapparoli, or Charlemagne Palestine. 

He has been Artist-In-Residence at Künstlerhäuser Worpswede (2009), EMS Stockholm (2014), Muong Studios, Hoa Binh/Vietnam (2015), Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Captiva/Florida (2017), Agosto Foundation, Prague (2019), and Taller30, San Miguel de Allende/MX (2024). 

Burkhard Beins leads workshops based on his graphic score system Adapt/Oppose. He is a co-editor and one of the authors of the book "Echtzeitmusik Berlin - Self-Defining a Scene" as well as the curator of a follow-up 3CD compilation featuring the Berlin Echtzeitmusik scene. Meanwhile he has released more than 60 CDs and LPs on labels like Zarek, Erstwhile, 2:13 Music, Hat Hut, Potlatch, Absinth, Herbal, Mikroton, Confront, Bocian, or Ni Vu Ni Connu.

"Burkhard Beins is best known as one of the most distinctive percussionists in European free music."
The Wire

"A polymath who has moved among noise, notated and electronic sounds plus semi-acoustic improvising Beins expresses atonality in a unique fashion on each disc."
 Jazzword 

"One of the strengths of Beins' playing is his ear for the strange."
The Wire

"Simply one of the most imaginative percussionists around, indeed making the tag 'percussionist' seem hopelessly deficient."
All Music Guide