Biography

Bodo Wartke is the gentleman entertainer on the wing. The audience appreciates him as a chansonnier and virtuoso pianist as well as a versatile actor and charming conférencier.

At the age of 19, on 16 November 1996, the cabaret artist gave his first full-length concert and looks back on a career as an artist that had lasted almost 20 years.

After the four piano cabaret programmes Ich denke, so' ich (1998), Achillesverse (2003), Noah war ein Archetyp (2006) and Klaviersdelikte (2012) and the solo play König Ödipus (2009), the programme Swingende Notwendigkeit with The Capital Dance Orchestra followed in 2013. In September 2015, the fifth piano cabaret programme "Was, wenn doch? Premiere.

In 2004 Bodo Wartke received the renowned German Cabaret Award in the category "Chanson" in the Mainz House of Commons. This is one of a number of prestigious prizes and awards that the artist has received so far, including the "St. Ingberter Pfanne" with the Audience Award, the "Stuttgarter Besen" and the 1st prize at the "Bundeswettbewerb Gesang". Bodo Wartke studied piano and singing at the Berlin University of the Arts from 2000 to 2005. He already took part as a conférencier in a variety show in 1998. In the same year he was composer and musical director in a production of "Unter dem Milchwald" (Dylan Thomas) directed by Sven Schütze, with whom he has worked since the beginning of his career. In 2002 the artist wrote a new German libretto for "Orpheus in der Unterwelt" (J. Offenbach), which premiered in Norderstedt in 2003. From 2006 to 2011, he hosted the annual Liedermacher-Open-Air "Songs an einem Sommerabend", which is broadcast by Bayerischer Rundfunk on radio and TV. He has been a regular guest at the 3satfestival since 2007 and at the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival since 2014.

Piano cabaret in rhyming culture - this is how Bodo Wartke describes his art of entertainment: lively songs with excellently rhymed texts full of witty words, to which he accompanies himself sovereignly at the piano. "At the same time and not one after the other", as he never gets tired of emphasizing, because "otherwise it would take twice as long". His set stories are charming observations of our everyday life and of the complications that interpersonal coexistence raises.

Bodo Wartkes King Oedipus - his ingeniously rhymed new poem based freely on Sophocles - has meanwhile been performed by several theatres, including the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden and the Wolfgang Borchert Theater in Münster, both as solo and ensemble versions.

In March 2012, the Verein für deutschsprachige Musik e.V. (Association for German-Language Music) will award the studio CD Piano Offences the CD of the Month. From March to August 2012, his song "Christine" was in the top ten of the song best list. The song "Das falsche Pferd" from the CD Was, wenn doch? was in the Top 20 of the song best list from November 2015 to February 2016.

Among the artist's current releases are the live Blu-ray for the program Klaviersdelikte, the live vinyl edition for Swingende Notwendigkeit and the studio CD as well as the music book for Was, wenn doch?

Bodo Wartke still lives in Berlin - as long as he's not sitting in the train and going to his next gig.