Derek von Krogh takes over from Prof. Udo Dahmen as Artistic Director

Prof. Udo Dahmen has been Artistic Director, Managing Director and Head of the Department of Popular Music at the Popakademie Baden-Württemberg since its founding in 2003. For 20 years, he was instrumental in the success of the university institution for popular music, music business and creative industries. He also served as Department Chief Drums until 2021, when he was succeeded by Anika Nilles. In 2017, the Popakademie was honored with the ECHO Award and the LEA Award for its successful work with young talent.

Dahmen studied classical percussion at the Musikhochschule Rheinland in Aachen and Cologne, and additionally drumset with Dante Agostini in Paris. He was speaker and professor of the Popkurs - Kontaktstudiengang Popularmusik at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg and built up the Rock/Pop/Jazz course at the Berufsfachschule für Musik Dinkelsbühl. As a drummer he played for Kraan, Lake, Inga Rumpf, Charlie Mariano as well as with Eberhard Schoener and in this context with Gianna Nannini, Sting, Nina Hagen, Jack Bruce, Gary Brooker.
His tenure included, for example, the extension building in 2008 (studio building) and in 2011 the extension of the main building by two more floors with the introduction of new study programs: the master programs Popular Music and Music and Creative Industries and in 2015 the bachelor program World Music. Dahmen accompanied the studies of nationally and internationally successful artists such as Alice Merton, JORIS, Konstantin Gropper (Get Well Soon), Anika Nilles, Lindgren, CRADA, MINE and many more.
Since 2013, he explains a well-known pop song of the last decades on Saturdays in the cultural program SWR2 in the column "Erklär mir Pop". He is vice president of the German Music Council and honorary president of the drummers' association "Percussion Creativ". In the future, he will be active in the new initiative "POPLÄND - Dialog Popkultur" as an advisor to the state of Baden-Württemberg.
"I would like to thank Hubert Wandjo and his successor Michael Herberger for the trustful cooperation. I had the unique opportunity to shape the founding of the Pop Academy and the content as well as orientation of the past 20 years together with Hubert Wandjo. I wish my successor Derek von Krogh all the best for the most beautiful job in the music business", says Prof. Udo Dahmen.

Born in Stuttgart, Derek von Krogh has many years of experience in music production, composition, arrangement and songwriting and brings with him an exceptionally broad spectrum in pop music practice and its various genres and formats, for which he has received multiple gold, platinum and Live Entertainment Awards. "The high quality and stylistic confidence in the training at the Popakademie Mannheim is encountered everywhere in everyday life in the industry. It is a great honor for me to be able to continue this highly impressive work of Udo Dahmen. The music profession is in a constant state of change, and it will continue to be the Academy's task to keep its finger on the pulse of the times and the technical status quo. Artistically, there can only be one credo: Encourage your own eye-catching signature," says Derek von Krogh, Artistic Director and Managing Director Popakademie Baden-Württemberg.

"I am delighted that the Supervisory Board has chosen Derek von Krogh as an extremely competent successor to Udo Dahmen, and I am very much looking forward to moving the Popakademie forward with him in the coming years," says Michael Herberger, Business Director and Managing Director.