Michael R. Hampel is a professor of guitar and head of the Guitar Department at the Musikhochschule Freiburg, Germany.
As a soloist and in chamber ensembles he performed in Europe, Asia and South America.
In recent years, he has especially focused on researching new possibilities of performing, teaching, and artistic expression in a vastly changing digital era, resulting among others in collaborations with the IRCAM Paris, the GMEM Marseille, and the ZKM Karlsruhe.
Before 2019 Prof. Hampel was vice-director of the Musikhochschule Trossingen in Germany and head of the Guitar Department as well as guest professor at the Department of Arts and Design of the Tongji University in Shanghai. In Trossingen he founded the Open Source Guitars, a renowned experimental guitar ensemble exploring new and innovative approaches for guitar(s) and analog/digital performance.