In Sepp Neumayer’s curriculum vitae one can recognise the upheavals that music can bring about in the life of a committed person. Born 1932 in Kleinarl, Germany, his life as a musician was not predetermined. After primary school he followed in his father’s footsteps and became a woodworker. At the age of 10, in the midst of the turmoil of war, he started his first musical steps with the Styrian harmonica and later on the accordion. In 1955 he gave up his bread and butter job and became “Postler” (employee of the Austrian Post AG) for the time being.
In 1949 the “Musikkapelle Kleinarl” was founded by the conductor Martin Gwehenberger. He was there from the beginning and gradually learned to play the clarinet, flugelhorn, bass flugelhorn and tuba. He also played with a dance band that was engaged for various festivals in Pongau and beyond. In 1960 he took over the musical direction of the Musikkapelle Kleinarl, and in 1965 he became District Kapellmeister and finally Deputy State Band Director in the province of Salzburg.
Sepp Neumayr began to compose as an autodidact, but later on he caught up on his music theoretical education with Prof. Leo Ertl, the former military and state conductor of Salzburg. After the first compositions were published by the music publisher Krenn, Vienna, Neumayr founded his own publishing house in the 1970s, where only his own works were published.
Sepp Neumayr’s musical work is committed to the Austrian musical tradition and ranges from marches, waltzes and overtures to church music, arrangements of classical music and many more. An overview of Sepp Neumayr’s works and arrangements can be found here for wind orchestra and here for ensembles.
