[ This biography is taken from Heisig's article in the December,
[ 1995, issue of the journal "Das Mechanische Musikinstrument"
[ (DMM), published by Gesellschaft fuer selbstspielende
[ Musininstrumente, which is the German Society for Self-playing
[ Music Instruments.

Wolfgang Heisig was introduced to player piano music in 1978, when
he was a student at the music boarding-school in Dresden. He and
five other students were crammed into a tiny "tunnel apartment",
listening to a severely distorted short-wave radio broadcast from
West Germany.  The broadcast featured the player piano music of
Conlon Nancarrow. His efforts to get information from the non-
Socialist West German broadcast studio were ruled out by the DDR
(East Germany) State Security Service.

He became a teacher of Music Theory at the music college in Dresden,
and one day in 1986 he discovered an article, in a donated magazine
from West Germany, about Nancarrow.  The author was Dr. Juergen
Hocker, now president of DMM.  This time the State Security Service
allowed Heisig to receive miscellaneous materials by mail; they
considered harmless the private correspondence with Dr. Hocker about
"an American Spanish-fighter living in Mexico and making piano roll
compositions!"

In November, 1988, Heisig was thrilled to receive an invitation from
the _East German_ Association of Composers and Musicologists, to
attend an event of the Cologne Philharmonic in West Germany.  The
DDR security officials granted permission to travel, observing,
"After all, he has three guarantors [that he will return]: his wife
and two children."  At a reception in Cologne he presented a piece
composed by Nancarrow which features "X" patterns punched in the
music roll.

Shortly after the Berlin Wall crumbled in 1989 Heisig cut an Ampico
roll of Ernst Tochs piece, "quasi Andante". Unfortunately, he says,
"I drew the music on the wrong side of the paper, and the result
sounded 'imprecise'."  After that experience he went on to
transcribe the Etudes of Gyorgy Ligeti.

Heisig presented more of his works at a convention in Munich in
1990, including a version of his interactive composition, "Ring
Parable", arranged for mechanical piano.  For the event Juergen
Hocker provided a Hupfeld Meisterspiel-Phonola.  About Hocker's
collection Heisig says, "The thoroughly renovated and groomed
Vorsetzers and pumper pianos are perfectly suited for works of
contemporary music."

As of mid-1995 Heisig has created music rolls of 17 original
compositions, transcriptions and arrangements of contemporary works
for the player piano, which have been presented publicly in
performances in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Czech
Republic.  He is currently pursuing development of a modern
computer-controlled perforator in cooperation with three companies
in Dresden.

He says to all: "I invite composers to write for the player piano!"

-- Robbie Rhodes