André Heller

His parents were Stephan Heller (1895–1958) and Elisabeth Heller (1914–2018).

He visited Café Hawelka almost daily.

It was in this coffeehouse that he met many men of letters including Friedrich Torberg, H. C. Artmann, and occasionally Elias Canetti, as well as Hans Weigel, and Helmut Qualtinger, with whom he later on collaborated and performed.

He took acting classes from Hans Weigel and his cohabitee Elfriede Ott.

Franz André Heller (born 22 March 1947 as Francis Charles Georges Jean André Heller-Hueart ) is an Austrian artist, author, poet, singer, songwriter, and actor.

Heller was born in Vienna into a wealthy Jewish family of sweets manufacturers, Gustav & Wilhelm Heller.

Heller has been writing prose, poetry, and songs since 1964.

He left school shortly before obtaining the Matura, (he went to a Jesuit boarding school).

From 1965 to 1967, he was a moderately successful actor at various Viennese avant-garde theatres.

In 1967, Heller co-founded Ö3, the ORF's then-progressive pop music station, where he was one of the hosts of the daily Musicbox programme.

Between 1967 and 1985, he published a total of fourteen LPs, twelve of those were gold records, and earned him seven times platinum.

I started in 1967, to put my poems together using my voice on record and in recitals before millions of people.

Between 1968 and 1983, Heller recorded 15 albums as a singer of his own texts, and in part of his own compositions.

He was on the road with 9 international concert tours, and was the host and entertainer in 12 evening-filling TV shows.

That same year, he recorded his first LP record with the title Nr1 that was released in 1970.

For instance, "Catherine", from 1970, was set to one of the first hits of Heller.

The text came from the then still largely unknown Reinhard Mey, and the music from the Austro-Canadian Jack Grunsky.

With Werner Schneyder, he created Viennese German songs that are translated from Jacques Brel, such as "Franz" (after the Brel title "Jef").

His second LP called, Platte was released in 1971, and, subsequently, his first play premiered entitled, King-Kong-King-Mayer–Mayer–Ling at Vienna Festival in 1972.

As a poet songwriter, his work spans across a period of more than 15 years selecting diverse topics and writing for a German-speaking audience.

He has worked with not only international names such as Ástor Piazzolla, Dino Saluzzi, and Freddie Hubbard, but also with Austrian artists such as Toni Stricker, Wolfgang Ambros, and Helmut Qualtinger.

Heller's own poetry has been set to music.

He has also sung texts by other authors.

Using intimate memories of traumatic childhood experiences, and insights into his life, as well as his Catholic-Jewish origin, he created songs with the title "Angstlied" (Verwunschen, 1980).

Titles like "Miruna, die Riesin von Göteborg" (Verwunschen, 1980) are, in turn, influenced by the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism.

Since the early 1980s, he turned increasingly to large public productions, installations and performances, until 1982, where his concert career came to close.

This was following the example of Bob Dylan's first meaningful and self-published poetry ... 1982 was certainly the zenith of that career, where I had to stop my concerts.

I realized at this point, it was spoiled for me, because at 8 pm, I had to act gifted in front of a few thousand listeners, just because they had paid for admission.

In 1983, he appeared on Stimmenhören with the song "Erhebet euch Geliebte", a song at the time of the peace movement in the early 1980s.

"Das Lied vom idealen Park" (Narrenlieder 1985), or, as a duet with Wolfgang Ambros, he also introduced the Bob Dylan cover, "Für immer jung" (Stimmenhören, 1983), are now titles that are part of the Austro-pop cannon.

In 1985, the album, Narrenlieder, was released.

In 1991, he wrote, looking back on this period:

– Heller in the liner notes of Kritische Gesamtausgabe published in 1991.

He designed the final presentation in 2000 for the successful West German application, and, in 2003, designed a "Fußball-Globus", an architectural project consisting of a huge lit-up football globe that toured through Germany standing in public places such as Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.

Heller invented the motto for the Football World Cup, Die Welt zu Gast bei Freunden (A time to make friends).

In 2006, thanks to the initiative of Chris Gelbmann, he released his last album called, Ruf und Echo.

The 3-CD compendium is the first release in the past 20 years, containing new songs, and interpretations of old hits by artists like Brian Eno, Xavier Naidoo, Thomas D, and The Walkabouts.

Heller was appointed as an Artistic Director of the Artistic and Cultural Programme that ran parallel to the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany.

His company, Artevent, was also responsible for the presentation of the Germany bid for the 2006 FIFA World Cup project.

However, on his 60th birthday, Heller gave a concert in April 2007 at the Viennese Radiokulturhaus, after twenty-five years of absence from the stage in a recital entitled, Konzert für mich (Concert for me).