Benjamin Weidekamp

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Benjamin Weidekamp (2014)

Benjamin Weidekamp (born May 8, 1977 in Münster ) is a German jazz and improvisation musician ( saxophone , clarinet ), composer and arranger .

Live and act

Weidekamp has lived in Berlin since 1999, where he studied saxophone / clarinet and composition at the Hanns Eisler Music Academy . He was the creative head and band leader of the bands Olaf Ton, Stereo Lisa and Themroc3 (nominated for the German Jazz Prize 2005). He continued to work with trumpeter Richard Koch in the formation of Odd Shot and the BläserBänd (with Frank Gratkowski , Matthias Schubert and Carl Ludwig Hübsch ).

In addition, he staged the music theater performance "Buben & Mädchen" for four musicians and an actress, which premiered in 2008 at the Schaubühne Berlin . On behalf of the Hessischer Rundfunk , he also staged the live performance “The Computer Band and the Princess of Kapé” for the children's concert at the German Jazz Festival Frankfurt 2009, which was staged again in 2012 at the Moers Festival.

As a member of the Fo [u] r Alto collective (with Frank Gratkowski, Christian Weidner and Florian Bergmann ), he worked intensively on expanding playing techniques on the saxophone and exploring and incorporating microtonality until he left the group ;

Understanding his saxophone and clarinet playing in the sense of an interdisciplinary artistic expression, he works not only with musicians, but also with other artists such as the international dance collective VMM (Various Material Management) around the Parisian dancer Margaruite Papazoglou, actors, the speech artist Christian Reiner and the DJ Vincent von Schlippenbach aka DJ Illvibe and the “computer band”, in which a live computer game is set to music by a band.

In 2010 Weidekamp founded his new quartet with Uli Kempendorff (ts / cl), Ronny Graupe (git) and Christian Marien (dr). At the 2012 festival appearance at “Jazz an der Lohmühle” in Berlin-Alt-Treptow , the band emphasized “Groove, humor, unconditional joy in playing” as characteristic features.

The compositions are rhythmically based on the names of the band members or their translation into Morse Code and harmoniously largely on FFT analyzes of preparations by the drummer and other microtonal approaches, such as the split cord technique, where e.g. 12-tone rows or the tone names that appear in the names of the musicians are divided in the middle by a quarter tone. So it happens e.g. that the drummer's cracked thaigong is spectrally analyzed, backwards and in 30x slow motion as a harmonic basis so that everyone can Morse code 16 times.

He also worked with Anthony Braxton and Simon Kanzler, in the Multiple Joy [ce] Orchestra , with Leon Gurvitch and worked as a musician and arranger in Gebhard Ullmann's formation Ta Lam 11 on his Charles Mingus project. He also played in the Z3 improvisation trio with Philip Zoubek and Christian Weber .

Prizes and awards

From May 2011 to January 2012 he lives in Basel on a scholarship from the Bartels Fondation.

In 2012 Weidekamp received a scholarship from the Künstlerhaus Lauenburg .

Discographic notes

Web links

Commons : Benjamin Weidekamp  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jazz calendar
  2. ↑ Portrait at Stereo Lisa
  3. ^ Children's theater for Mini-Moerser , May 22, 2012
  4. ↑ Fo (u) r Alto Projekt  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.benjaminweidekamp.de
  5. ^ The meeting point
  6. ↑ Saturday 28th July 2012 - jazzkeller 69 presents Open Air Stage Lohmühlenstraße , accessed September 12, 2012
  7. ↑ weird humorous self-portrayal on Benjamin Weidekamp's website
  8. ^ Foundation for the small Markgräflerhof ( Memento from October 12, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  9. ^ Künstlerhaus Lauenburg - biographies of the scholarship holders
personal data
SURNAME Weidekamp, ​​Benjamin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German jazz and improvisation musician
DATE OF BIRTH May 8, 1977
PLACE OF BIRTH Muenster