“Sometimes a piece appears almost all at once; sometimes it arrives in
small fragments that slowly find their way to one another.”
Finding My Way Back to Music
I’m Natalie Hawacker, a pianist and composer based in Bamberg, Germany.
I would describe myself as a quiet, thoughtful person – someone who observes a lot and tends to get lost in the small details and moods of a moment. At the same time, I’m a cheerful and optimistic person at heart.
Music was part of my life from an early age. I started playing the piano as a child and took lessons for many years. At some point, however, the piano almost completely disappeared from my everyday life.
Many years later, an intense period in my life eventually led to burnout. For the first time, I no longer felt strong and resilient, but vulnerable and unsure of myself. It was as if the sunshine in my heart had given way to endless rain and thick fog.
It was during this time that I found my way back to the piano.
At first, I simply wanted to play again. But after all those years, I had forgotten so much that I began to improvise instead. The music gave my emotions a voice when I couldn’t find the words for them. Out of one of those improvisations came my first composition: A Storm Rises – a musical reflection of the storm that was raging inside me at the time.
I had never planned to become a composer. My path into composition was never an academic one. It began with improvisation, intuition and the simple desire to express something I couldn’t put into words.
And that is still how much of my music comes to life today. I rarely sit down at the piano intending to write a piece. More often, I simply feel the urge to play and let my fingers find their way. Sometimes a piece appears almost all at once; sometimes it arrives in small fragments that slowly find their way to one another.
One piece became many. They grew out of memories, nature, longing, loss and hope – sometimes from nothing more than a fleeting moment or even an accidentally played note.
These musical snapshots eventually became my debut album, Fragments. Created entirely independently, the album carries my personal musical signature throughout. Among my most important musical influences are Yann Tiersen, Alexandre Desplat and Erik Satie.
Perhaps that is what lies at the heart of my music: preserving the small fragments of life – those fleeting moments that can be difficult to grasp, yet somehow leave something behind in us.