I am a saxophonist and clarinetist from Berlin, Germany. I mostly focus on performing but have composed the music for six albums of my own small group and contributed original music to records by Julia Hülsmann, Mike Pride, Ernte and Evi Filippou. Aside from focussing on writing and developing my own music, I love to engage with other people’s musics and ideas as a sideman. In all areas of music I cherish collaboration and cooperation and growing with the tasks at hand. When I was 13, Bebop is what brought me to the instrument and continues to be an inspiration and challenge. The promise inherent in this great art form - freedom of expression within given forms, a highly evolved rhythmic grammar tied to deep historical roots, melodic movement reliant on a deep understanding of harmonic movement and structure, high virtuosity in the service of beauty and the constant development of skill has been stomped on for decades by the country of its origin. Attempting to do it justice and following this path beyond the notes and tones is what continues to inspire me.

 

I studied saxophone and improvisation at the „Hanns Eisler“ conservatory in Berlin and at City College in New York City. My work has been documented on labels like ECM, Enja and Four Music. Aside from my own projects such as "Field" (since 2018 with Christopher Dell, Peter Bruun and Jonas Westergaard), I’ve been active in groups with Julia Hülsmann, Ulrich Gumpert, Benjamin Weidekamp, Felix Henkelhausen, Wanja Slavin, Rudi Mahall, Markus Pesonen, Pablo Held, Tobias Delius, Mike Pride, Lina Allemano and Christian Weber;

I have toured, recorded and played with SEEED, Rolf Kühn, Bad Stream, Jimi Tenor and 'Little' Jimmy Scott.

 

In 2010, I started the concert series "Serious Series" which I curated until 2014. In 2016, I programmed the concert series "In Between Festivals" in Wroclaw (PL), as part of the city's European Capital of Culture tenure. This was done in collaboration with Marc Schmolling, Stiftung Zukunft Berlin and MicaMoca. Until 2018 I also co-curated the series "JAB 105" at Berlin's club A-Trane with Gebhard Ullmann.

Concerts and teaching brought me to the Ivory Coast, Canada, the US, South America, Usbekistan, Mexico and to many countries in Europe. I have received several grants from the city of Berlin, was a DAAD-scholar from 2006-2007 in NYC and spent a month at the Stadtmühle Willisau in Switzerland as a guest of the Alfred-Köchlin-Foundation. I am also an alumni of the Stiftung Àrvore (CH).

 

I have been teaching for over two decades, from music schools to conservatories, to beginners and to incredibly talented aspiring musicians, as a guest lecturer or with a teaching position in Berlin, Hannover, Basel, Frankfurt am Main, Stuttgart and Weimar. 

Some of my writings have been published in publications by the Jazzinstitut Darmstadt and the magazine Jazzpodium. An oral history podcast about jazz in East Germany I’ve been working on for the past two and a half years with my friends Dörte Fiedler and Peter Ehwald is being published episode by episode by the Federal Agency for Civic Education.