biography
“Who doesn’t know his roots has no hold.”
Origins
Ralph Baudach comes from a family with roots in East Germany.
His great-great-grandfather, Andreas Schultz, operated a factory for Aromatique herbal liqueur in Neudietendorf (Thuringia) in the second half of the 19th century. Aromatique, marketed as beneficial to health at the time, was very popular.
the Schultz family, down left (sitting) Ralph Baudach’s great-grandmother Hedwig, ca. 1875
above: Aromatique factory headquarters in former Dietendorf in Thuringia, ca. 1910
right: a bottle of Aromatique herbal liqueur from around 1910
later cinema advertisement for Aromatique herbal liqueur, ca. 1950
Business was doing well. As a result, Andreas Schultz was able to finance the education of one of his numerous daughters to become a concert pianist. She met Ralph Baudach's great-grandfather during their house music sessions.
Hedwig Lindenlaub (née Schultz) and her husband Armin during a house music session in Dietendorf (ca. 1900)
Hedwig Lindenlaub (née Schultz) and Armin Lindenlaub had three children. One of them, then a young woman, met her husband Heinz Baudach, a technical merchant from Görlitz, in the Thuringian town of Ilmenau.
Their happiness was short-lived, however. Ralph Baudach's grandfather died in June 1942 during the Battle of Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula. Seven months later, the couple's only son was born.
sergeant Heinz Baudach (sen.), ca. 1940
Ilse Baudach (née Lindenlaub) and Heinz Baudach (sen.) during his last home leave, 1942
Ralph Baudach's father grew up in Chemnitz. His earliest memories are the nights spent in air raid shelters during the Allied bombing attacks in spring of 1945. In his youth, he was rebellious towards the socialist regime. As a result, his dream of studying medicine was denied, and the authorities intended to assign him to become a farmer.
However, Ralph Baudach's father refused to give up his dream. Eight weeks before the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, he fled to West Berlin on his bicycle and finally arrived at a reception camp near Frankfurt/Main. There he completed the West German Abitur in addition to the Abitur he had already earned in the GDR, and finally began his long-awaited medical studies.
During his student years, he earned money by playing in various cover bands with songs by The Rolling Stones and The Beatles, mostly in US military clubs in and around Frankfurt. He started playing the electric bass, and later also the saxophone. This choice of instruments would continue in his son's life later on.
Heinz Baudach (jun.) playing the saxophone with his band ”Die Moskitos”, 1964
The family of Ralph Baudach's mother has its roots in seafaring. For generations, they were based in and around Stralsund. Ralph Baudach's maternal great-grandfather traveled the world on merchant ships.
Towards the end of World War II, the family fled approaching Russian troops and settled in southern Bavaria. Ralph Baudach's mother was born shortly thereafter.
Ralph Baudach’s great-grandfather Paul Passehl, ca. 1912
cargo steamer “MS Magdeburg” pulling into Sydney harbour, 1932
steamer “Menes” at Hamburg harbour, 1933
Twenty-five years later, she worked as a pediatric nurse at a clinic in Darmstadt, where she met her future husband, Ralph's father. He had since become a senior physician in gynaecology. Some years later, they moved to southern Bavaria.
Life
Ralph Baudach was born in Munich in 1982. Five years later, the family moved again, this time to Rhineland-Palatinate. So Ralph Baudach grew up with his three sisters in Koblenz at the Rhein river.
He learned to play the saxophone and played in various bands on his father's instrument. In 2002, he graduated from Max-von-Laue-Gymnasium with a degree in mathematics, physics, and French. After that, he spent a year with Heeresmusikkorps 300 (Army Band), playing concerts and tours in Germany, Austria and Estonia.
holding the luggage trunk hatch of his family’s Renault R4, 1992
as a saxophone beginner in 1993 (left) and touring with Heeresmusikkorps 300 in Estonia in 2003 (right)
as a 14 year-old at the final concert of Jazz-Workshops Erlangen (1997)
In 2003, he faced a choice: Mathematics at the Technical University of Berlin or a degree in the small Thuringian town where his grandmother had met her husband in the early 1940s: Ilmenau.
He chose Ilmenau and the study of Applied Media Science (focus: film production) at the local Technical University Ilmenau.
He received funding from the Leonardo da Vinci programme of the EU and completed a six-month internship at an animation studio in Edinburgh. There, he produced the animation film Epilogue which was shown at festivals around the world in 2007, from Seattle and Rio de Janeiro to Clermont-Ferrand, Stuttgart and Berlin as well as Krakow and Tehran.
with his band MUCKEPACK. at the final concert of the musician’s camp in Celle (2006)
In 2007/2008, he studied Chinese film, American literature & film and documentary film at the Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines. At the same time, he collaborated with Philippine animation studio Artfarm Asia to produce the short film MOX. The film, a combination of live-action and 2D animation, was funded by Goethe-Institut Philippines and Thuringian State Chancellery. It was later shown at film festivals in Manila and Clermont-Ferrand.
researching at one of the houses of former Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos (2007)
making a photo report in Manila (2008)
In 2008/2009 Ralph Baudach lived in Berlin and did in-depth research about the visualisation of music. For this work he received his diploma from TU Ilmenau in 2009.
He then completed the prestigious programme traineeship at NDR in 2010/2011. From 2011 onwards, he worked as a TV author, reporter and video journalist for ARD, NDR and arte. In 2019, he became part of the newsreader team at tagesschau. Since spring 2021, he has been a regular live news presenter for tagesschau24 as well.
soloing at a jubilee concert of Youth Big Band of Thuringia in 2015
Prior to his work as a journalist and moderator, Ralph Baudach performed as a poetry slam artist on various stages in Berlin, Munich and Hamburg, alongside luminaries of the craft such as Torsten Sträter and Marc-Uwe Kling. In addition, he has been a passionate musician since 1993, particularly in the jazz and pop genres. He has played hundreds of concerts with various bands and formations and has performed at festivals like SWR3 New Pop Festival and on television, including appearances on German TV series Verbotene Liebe. In 2005, he passed an audition for the Federal Youth Jazz Orchestra.
He is a multi-instrumentalist as well as a visual artist and runs a studio for music recording and art in Hamburg.