Johannes Otto Claus Brinkmann was born in Zeven, Lower Saxony, on July 11, 1964.

He studied church music in Herford and completed studies in music theory and composition at the Hochschule der Künste in Bremen.

His teachers included Hans-Joachim Kauffmann (traditional composition), Luciano Ortis, Norbert Fröhlich, David Kosviner and Younghi Pagh-Paan (composition).

After these studies Johannes O. C. Brinkmann was given a teaching assignment in the subjects form theory/analysis as well as aural training and general music theory.

Currently, in addition to his private teaching work, he holds teaching positions in composition, arrangement and analysis at the Lutheran Church Music School in Bayreuth and in composition and aural training at the University of Erlangen.

Brinkmann also works as a church musician at the Erlöserkirche Fürth/Dambach.

Since 1988 his music, which up to now has consisted mainly of chamber music works, has been performed in concert halls and radio stations, but also in churches. Brinkmann's oeuvre includes interdisciplinary works such as film and stage music and electroacoustic installations.

In Brinkmann's compositions, the preference for "traditional music" is clearly noticeable, and although the listener may discover familiar forms, he is not spared innovative and unexpected refractions of these traditional forms.

This makes Brinkmann's music an interesting link between different musical forms,

Thus, avant-garde features occur just as much as those of "post-modernism" and the freitonal form of composition.

Even in short compositions, such as his "3 elegiac dream pieces" for piano solo, Johannes Otto Claus Brinkmann manages to send the listener on a visual-acoustic journey and shows that compositions of "new music" can also be emotionally moving without having to imitate romanticism.