Born in 1967, Markus Hechtle studied composition with Wolfgang Rihm at the University of Music Karlsruhe after completing high school and community service. Studies with Heiner Goebbels, Mathias Spahlinger, Thomas A. Troge and Walter Zimmermann complemented his education. After completing his studies, he worked as a freelance composer with the Ensemble Intermodulation Budapest, the Aleph Guitar Quartet, Klangforum Wien, Ensemble 13, the Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra Baden-Baden and Freiburg, the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Contemporary Music Ensemble SORI/Seoul, the German Radio Philharmonic Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern, the German National Youth Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Austrian Ensemble for New Music, the Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart and the Ensemble Modern. His music includes works for soloist and ensemble, orchestral ensemble, and musical theater.
Markus Hechtle received a scholarship from the Heinrich Strobel Foundation of the Südwestfunk (1995) as well as the Arts Foundation Baden-Württemberg (1998) and was awarded the Music Sponsorship Award of the Academy of Arts, Berlin (2002), the Music Sponsorship Prize of the International Lake Constance Conference (2003) and the International Ernst von Siemens Music Prize (2007).
In addition to his compositions, Markus Hechtle was freelance editor for the ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe. He is the author of broadcasts for Deutschlandradio Kultur and the SWR, gives lectures, writes texts and articles (A selection: Memoirs - Records of a live sampler, MusikTexte 156 (2018); Redemption of Art, MusikTexte 145 (2015); My writing as Tor, in: Touches, Publication of the Institute for New Music and Music Education Darmstadt, Volume 52, Schott (2012); I have no idea, but ...!, Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 03/2011, Schott; and in Popular vs. Elitist, Edition New Journal of Music, Schott (2013); Lazy Apple, Fake Beard, or Philosophy as a Disease to Art?, in Hearing & Thinking, Edition New Journal of Music, Schott (2011); ... How the day goes by, melos online 01/2008, Schott, and in MusikTexte 134 (2012), composing after Rihm and Spahlinger, MusikTexte 110 (2006) and in Orientations, Publication of the Institute for New Music and Music Education Darmstadt, Volume 47, Schott (2007); 198 Windows to an Imagined World - V, in pursuit of the fundamental work of Mathias Spahlinger in his orchestral composition passage/paysage - book publication with CD, Pfau-Verlag, Saarbrücken (2005).
Musical collaboration and live participation of theatrical productions of Max Black by Heiner Goebbels led Markus Hechtle to many guest appearances at theaters in Europe and beyond.
Markus Hechtle taught composition at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln from 2009 - 2019 and has been professor of composition at the Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe since 2013. Courses, seminars, lectures at home and abroad as well as jury, commission and reviewer activities complement his work.