Hans Walter Kämpfel
Hans Walter Kämpfel (22 June 1924 – 22 April 2016) was a German conductor, composer and Generalmusikdirektor in Aachen and Bremen. Life and career Kämpfel was born in near Ingolstadt. After passing his Abitur in 1942 at the Wilhelmsgymnasium München, Kämpfel studied at the Akademie für Tonkunst in Munich, now the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München, with Hans Rosbaud, Joseph Haas and Rosl Schmid, among others. He then began his musical career in 1947 as répétiteur at the Bavarian State Opera. At the same time, he worked for Karl Amadeus Hartmann in the concert series musica viva of Bayerischer Rundfunk, which aimed at the performance and dissemination of contemporary music in Germany. He then spent several years as Kapellmeister at the Stadtischen Bühnen Gelsenkirchen and Augsburg and as head of opera at the Zürich Opera House before he was called to Aachen in 1958, where he took up the post of General Music Director at the Theater Aachen there, succeeding Wolfgang Sawallisch. On 1 September 1961 he finally moved to the Bremer Philharmoniker in the same function, where he remained until 1968. After a period filled with various guest contracts, Kämpfel took over as chief conductor of the symphony