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Hermann Kretzschmar was born in 1958. After studying School Music and German Studies, he went on to study piano with Bernhard Ebert in Hannover. He became a member of the Ensemble Modern in 1985.

As a soloist and chamber musician, he worked together with a number of renowned composers such as John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, György Kurtag, Mauricio Kagel, Frank Zappa and Fred Frith.

His CD recordings with the Ensemble Modern include the piano trio »Presence« by Bernd A. Zimmermann and the »Violin Sonata No. 2« by Antheil as well as »Phrygian Gates« by John Adams. He has also performed several chamber music pieces by Walter Zimmermann.

Kretzschmar has provided commentaries as a speaker (mainly on CDs by Frank Zappa) and has also co-written a book with Rainer Römer, titled »Deutsche Werft«, published by belleville in 1999.

Together with Catherine Milliken and Dietmar Wiesner, he founded the composer collective HCD Productions in 1994. HCD has produced the CDs »Migrations« (works by Paul Bowles), »Surface Tension« (works by Howard Skempton) as well as the audio plays »Denotation Babel« (Prix Italia 1999) and »Cosmic Memos«, based on Calvino (Audio Play of the Month, NRW Audience Award).

Kretzschmar composes chamber music with electronic and audio pieces made for radio. During the 1990s, he was commissioned to write the composition »Crown Calibre« for the 1993 Multimediale festival at ZKM Karlsruhe and the String quartet »AblEnkung EntfErnung« for the Illinger Burgfest.

In a joint project with the French fine artist Jerome Basserode in 2000, Kretzschmar composed »Cinq pour neuf« and »31 Objets retrouvée« for Basserode's 9-key cembalo. In 2001 he developed and produced the audio play »zur Zeit« (hr), in 2002 he composed the audio play »STUFEN« with the voices of Walter Zimmermann, Hans Zender, Fredric Rzewski and Dieter Schnebel (hr, text by Cage/Hesse). His song collection »plötzlich ging die sonne aus« (text by Konrad Bayer) was performed by Ilja Richter and the Frankfurt Contemporary String Quartet in 2003. In 2004, he composed the radio chamber opera »Strahlungen« (hr, Radio Play of the Month in May 2004), in 2006 he provided »Harmonies of Paradise« (hr), based on a text by Marcel Proust. Furthermore Hermann Kretzschmar has composed the music for the audio play version of the novel »Doktor Faustus« (with Hess/Koppelmann) by Thomas Mann in 2007 (hr/BR, der Hörverlag).