Roland Haerdtner

Härdtner (born 27 March 1964) is a German marimba player, a soloist for mallet instruments, percussion and timpani.

With the beginning of his studies at the Robert-Schumann-Hochschule Düsseldorf (1985–92), he concentrated on independent-minded interpretations of demanding concert literature (e.g. the Concerto pour Marimba, Vibraphone et Orchestre, op.278 by Darius Milhaud) and on the arrangement of western cultural sphere’s music for his instruments.

Besides his work as an orchestra musician, he has established himself in the concert business as a soloist for the mallet instruments marimba, vibraphone and xylophone since the 1980s.

To contrast with this, the jazz arrangements of his quartet Swinging Mallets from the CD AIRevolution (published in 2001) are merely guided, besides some quotations, by the harmonic framework of Bach’s reference.

An example for this can be the most successful - measured on the number of its presentations - marimba concert of concert literature Concerto for Marimba and String Orchestra No.1 by the Brazilian Ney Rosauro, composed in 1986 [2], which was also recorded for the CD Virtuos Mallets by Haerdtner and is described as “One of the best performances from my concerto that I ever heard.” by the composer himself [1,3].