Hans Hassler

Born in Switzerland in 1945, Hans Hassler trained on accordion under Mogens Ellegaard in Copenhagen before going on to master clarinet, piano, and guitar. Across his career he has explored an unusually wide spectrum of idioms, from opera to Dixieland. He appeared regularly with the Zurcher Kammerorchester and can be heard on recordings by the avant-jazz unit Habarigani as well as, most prominently, Mathias Ruegg’s Vienna Art Orchestra and Swiss Art Orchestra. In the mid- to late 1990s he also performed with Ivano Torre Quintetto, Beat Follmi, and Gebhard Ullmann.