Okko Bekker

Biography

Okko Bekker (born July 30, 1947, in Heidelberg) is a Dutch musician and music producer. Okko Bekker grew up with strong encouragement in the arts and learned to play several instruments at an early age, including piano, guitar, sitar, and trumpet. After receiving acting training in his youth, he initially worked as a street musician. In the 1960s, while in Hamburg, he met the electronic musician Asmus Tietchens, with whom he maintained a long-standing artistic collaboration. Bekker immersed himself deeply in electronic music and ethnomusicology; in 1971, he released his first solo album, *Sitar & Electronics*, which combined Indian sounds with electronic music. As a studio musician, he worked with artists such as Achim Reichel and was a member of the band Liliental. He also contributed as a guitarist to the album *Cluster & Eno* by the Krautrock group Cluster. Additionally, together with other musicians, he founded the comedy music group "Okko, Lonzo, Berry, Chris und Timpe." Beginning in the 1990s, Bekker increasingly focused on composing film scores and worked closely with Otto Waalkes, writing music for his film and comedy productions and occasionally appearing as an actor himself. Among his most well-known compositions is the song "Talk to Me," which served as the theme tune for the *NDR Talk Show*. Later, he also composed music for the German version of the animated series *SpongeBob SquarePants*. Bekker currently resides in Hamburg.