In 1949, Hartmut Klug graduated from the Dresden Conservatory as a pianist, composer and conductor. During his studies, he met the Dresden dancer and dance teacher Gret Palucca, who took him as a pianist 1947-1949 on their tour through all the occupation zones of Germany. In 1950 he was a freelancer for RIAS Berlin as a composer, arranger, reviser and recording assistant. In 1951 he took over the musical direction of the Folkwang Dance Theatre Essen under Kurt Jooss. Tours took him through Germany and Western Europe. In 1953 he studied chamber music and conducting at the Conservatoire de Paris and graduated with the award “Premier Prix”. In 1954 he was with the dance couple Alexander by Swaine-Lisa Czóbel on tour through India, Pakistan, Ceylon, Indonesia, Singapore and Hong Kong, later also through Syria Lebanon and Iran.
Klug 1955 took a job at the Wuppertal stages under ballet master Erich Walter. Until 1969 he worked as a rehearsal and conductor, then as a study director and Kapellmeister for opera and operetta and as a composer. From 1968 he directed the opera school of the Bergisches Landeskonservatorium. The Conservatory was incorporated in 1972 in the State University of Music Rhineland (Cologne), today College of Music and Dance Cologne. From 1974 until his retirement in 1991 Klug was working there as a professor.
Hartmut Klug conducts the Zupforchester Rheinland-Pfalz (2009)
Hartmut Klug's extensive ancillary activities include directing youth symphony orchestras, amateur orchestras, Zupforchesters, choirs and chamber music ensembles. From 1968 Klug was head of the orchestral society Solingen, in the 1970s head of the instrumental association Wuppertal, one of the oldest German amateur orchestras.
From October 1968 to 1991 Klug led the traditional Zupforchester der Mandolinen-Konzertgesellschaft Wuppertal.. Plucked music had until then been largely foreign to him, but he quickly introduced a varied repertoire. This included New Music such as Mauricio Kagel's MUSI (first performed in 1972 in the Cologne Funkhaus). Likewise, Klug organized a series of children's concerts with the orchestra (“Sitzkissenkonzerte”).
In 1982, Klug founded the Coesfelder Orchestertage, which he directed until 2002, a venue for numerous world premieres. From 2000 to mid-2002 he headed the Hessian Zupforchester (HZO). From mid-1994 to mid-2016, he led the Zupforchester Rheinland-Pfalz (ZORP). Both orchestras are selection orchestras of the German band of German plucked musicians. Because of his services to the Zupfmusik appointed him the Bund German plucking musicians in 2003 honorary member.
Over a period of 30 years, Klug gave well-publicized lectures at community colleges. (Wikipedia)