Born in Fröndenberg (Germany) in 1958

Since the early 1980s Thomas Lehn has been working as a author and performer of contemporary music.

After studying recording engineering - piano with Prof. Wilfried Kassebaum - at the Music Academy of Detmold in Germany, studies at the Music Academy of Cologne with Peter Degenhardt and Prof. Klaus Oldemeyer (classical piano) and with Frank Wunsch and Francis Coppieters (jazz piano) completed his academical education. In the 80ies he took part on courses of Studio for pianistic interpretation held by Prof. Jürgen Uhde.

As an interpreting pianist he has played concerts since 1982 - performing both contemporary new music including numerous first performances and traditional composed music of the classical and romantically period. In 1989 he initiated the chamber ensemble Trio Dario and four years later the Mengano Quartett, performing compositions of the contemporary avant-garde, in particular numerous first performances of comissioned works.

Developed parallel to his work as a pianist, since the early 1990s he concentrates on performing live-electronic music. Rooted in the experience of a wide spectrum of musical fields based on his background as an interpreting and improvising pianist in classical-, contemporary and jazz-music and being involved in numerous other projects like music theatre, dance, multi-media, studio pre-/post-production etc., he has been developing an individual 'language' of electronic music.
The electronic equipment he uses consists of analogue synthesizers of the late 1960s, and since 1994 in particular the EMS Synthi A. The facilities of this instrument - for example to modify electronic sounds very directly as well as to combine and to control several parameters of the sound synthesis at the same time - allows him to spontaneously act and react in close contact with the various structural degrees of the musical process.

In 2000 his solo album Feldstärken has been released on German label Random Acoustics.

His ensemble activities include duetts with: Gerry Hemingway and Marcus Schmickler, whos CDs Tom & Gerry and Bart has been released on Erstwhile Records; Günter Christmann, who published the CD temps durée on his own label edition explico; Eugene Chadbourne and Paul Lovens, with whom he published c inside and Achtung on grob; and Raymond Strid, with whom he released the vinyl single Here-There on Stockholms label Fylkingen. Other duett partners are Italian violinist Tiziana Bertoncini, Swiss saxophonist Urs Leimgruber and French pianist Frédéric Blondy.

Major trio collaborations are KONK PACK with Tim Hodgkinson and Roger Turner (CDs Big Deep, Warp Out and off leash published on GROB), TOOT with Phil Minton and Axel Dörner (CD one on SOFA), THERMAL with John Butcher and Andy Moor (CD Thermal on unsounds), FUTCH with Jon Rose and Johannes Bauer (CD Futch on Jazzwerkstatt); others are Die Klangräumer with Andreas Wagner and Guido Hafner (Mangelware on hybrid music production) and a trio with Radu Malfatti and Phil Durrant (CDs beinhaltung and dach released on Fringes and Erstwhile).

Larger ensembles are the audio-visual ensemble E-RAX with Peter van Bergen, Gert-Jan Prins and Petra Dolleman (released live at the bimhuis in 1999 on X-OR and DVD Antics in 2004 on INFIM), the CORTET with Cor Fuhler, John Butcher and Rhodri Davies (CD HHHH published on unsounds), the vario 34 sextet with Günter Christmann, Alexander Frangenheim, Mats Gustafsson, Paul Lovens and Christian Munthe (vario-34 and water writes only in plural released by edition explico and concepts of doing), and last, but not least MIMEO, the Music in Movement Electronic Orchestra (which released queue, electric chair & table and, in collaboration with John Tilbury, The Hands of Caravaggio).

More recent projects are GRAUZONE, a trio researching on appropriate forms of notation for composer-performer ensemble (with violinist Tiziana Bertoncini and bassist Achim Tang), ensemble]h[iatus, an ensemble for interpretation and improvisation of contemporary music (in collaboration with Le Quan Ninh, Martine Altenburger a.m.o.), trios with Frech saxophonist Bertrand Gauguet and Austrian quartertone trumpet player Franz Hautzinger, as well as with Günter Christmann and Roger Turner, and a quartet with reed player Ken Vandermark, trombonist Johannes Bauer and drummer Paal Nilsson-Love.

Thomas Lehn has been touring in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Hungaria, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the USA.

He has been involved in projects promoted and/or supported by Goethe-Institute in Belgrade, Bratislava, Budapest, Chicago, Copenhagen, Glasgow, Lille, London, Manchester, Marseille, Montreal, Rome, Tokyo, Toronto, Warsaw, Wellington and York.