Johannes Driessler

Who was Johannes Driessler?

Johannes Driessler was a German composer, organist, and lecturer.

Driessler studied composition and organ in Cologne at the Musikhochschule from 1939 to 1940. In November 1940, Driessler enlisted in the military; in 1944 he married Gertrude Ledermann. After World War II, he became a teacher in 1945 in Schondorf am Ammersee. In 1946, he became a lecturer at the Northwest German Academy of Music in Detmold. Here he began writing much church music. He left the academy in 1953 to focus on composition, but returned in 1954, becoming a professor in 1958 and Vice Chancellor in 1959, a post he would retain until 1972.

He was awarded the Westphalian Music Prize in 1959; and in 1962 the Kunstpreis des Saarlandes.