Hans-Joachim Hespos (13 March 1938 – 18 July 2022) was a German composer of avant-garde music.
[3] After completing school with the Abitur, Hespos studied pedagogy at the Pädagogische Hochschule Oldenburg.
He remained always outside of the mainstream and was never associated with any of the many movements in postwar European music, though he did attend summer courses at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse in the 1980s.
[4] He frequently wrote for less-common instruments, such as cimbalon (1976's Cang) or musical saw (used in Ganifita-Blues, 1984).
He called for extreme stage techniques in his theatre works; Seiltanz ("Tightrope Dance", 1982) requires an actor to break his way out of a metal cage by means of a welding torch.