*26.1.1962 Munich

Born in Munich in 1962, as the son of a Turkish immigrant, Askin studied there from 1982-86 at the Conservatory there (composition with Dieter Acker and Wilhelm Killmayer), and in 1987 he was a visiting student at the Film and Television School.  Alongside his studies, he already began early on to work with a wide variety of bands and projects (including Sissi Perlinger and Ron Williams) as pianist, keyboard player and composer, and was also active as a radio announcer, copyist, editor, music teacher and night porter. At the end of the 80s and start of the 90s he was very busy working as composer, musician and musical director for various theatres (including the Residenztheater, Münchner Kammerspiele, Zürcher Schauspiel, and Schauspiel Düsseldorf). In the years 1991-93 he was Frank Zappa’s assistant on the project “The Yellow Shark” (with Ensemble Modern), and to the present day, Askin works for the “Zappa Family Trust” in Los Angeles. So 2000 saw the evening show “The Adventures of Greggery Peccary and Other Persuasions” (for Ensemble Modern with Peter Eötvös, Omar Ebrahim and David Moss), which was successfully performed in many European cities. For this, Askin arranged and transcribed compositions and recordings by Zappa. For the 2000 Holland Festival he reconstructed the original score of the orchestral pieces for Zappa’s legendary filmic opus “200 Motels”. These had previously never been performed ‘live’ in this form.

Since 1993 Askin has collaborated with Heiner Goebbels, including the orchestral project “Surrogate Cities”, for which Askin produced transcriptions and orchestrations, and the music theatre piece “Die Wiederholung”, where he was an assistant, and also responsible for programming and transcriptions. At performances of both works, Askin was guest keyboarder with various orchestras (Bochumer Symphoniker, BBC Scottish Orchestra etc.), and theatres (TAT Frankfurt, Hebbel Theater Berlin, ATEM Nanterre/Paris, Theaterfestival Zürich etc.).

Radio is another medium in which Askin has been active since the mid-90s. Along with Markus Vanhoefer he wrote, produced and realised two radio plays for Bavarian Radio (“Johanna” and “Flaubert Oriental”). In 1999 at intermedium 1 he realised his radio play “Twilight L.A.”, based on a theatre piece by Anna Deavere Smith. This was broadcast by BR, WDR, SWR and DeutschlandRadio.

Along with music for spoken theatre, Askin has also created numerous musical and concert performances, as well as contributing music to multimedia events. Among others, he wrote “Trommeln im Licht” (1995, for the Bavarian State Opera’s laboratory in Marstall) and “Blau ist die Farbe” (1997, Wuppertal), both of them works which combine electronics, live music, theatrical elements and lighting. For Expo 2000 he composed music for the successful night-time spectacle “Flambée - Human Facets”. In 2002-03 Askin played a guest role in various French cities in Jean-Luc Therminarias’ music theatre event “Spaghetti Club”, where he both controlled the music and joined in as a live musician.

Since the mid-nineties, work in film and television have been important areas of activity for Askin. There were scores for various productions (cinema, documentaries and TV movies) and broadcasters (ZDF, WDR, NDR, ARTE, SAT1, PRO7). The soundtrack for the cinema film “Sieben Monde” (for Buenavista International) appeared in 1998 on Colosseum Records. He composed and produced the music and created the sound design for the documentary film “Ratten” (ARTE/WDR), which was awarded the Grimme-Preis in 1999.

Early and intense activity in styles like rock, jazz, funk and others (as well involvement with associated electronic and electro-acoustic instruments) led to a lively involvement with modern club music, and with every branch of electronic music. Work with modern techniques of producing and manipulating sound (sampling, audio software) is basic to Askin’s productions. This results, for example, in remixes of both well-known music (“Morricone Rmx”) and some that is less well-known (“Star Maidens”). Using the project name s-nemek, he publishes experimental electronic music (e.g. on the French label 326) which he also performs live.

Up to 1992 Askin lived in Munich, from 1993 to 2000 in Wuppertal (1999 and 2000 also in Los Angeles), and since 2001 in Berlin.