Hannes Zerbe

Hannes Zerbe (born December 17, 1941 in Litzmannstadt ) is a German composer and pianist. He lives in Berlin .

Life

After studying electrical engineering , he studied piano and composition at the music academies in Dresden and Berlin . He has been a professional musician since 1969.

From 1985 to 1987 he was a master student of composition with Paul-Heinz Dittrich at the Academy of the Arts in the GDR . Zerbe has been organizing and leading international workshops and tours in the fields of jazz and improvised music since the late 1970s .

Zerbe was a member of the FEZ group (with Conny Bauer , Christoph Niemann and Peter Gröning) and the Osiris quintet (by Joe Sachse with Manfred Hering , Wolfram Dix and Christoph Winckel ). In 1979 he founded his large-format Hannes Zerbe Blech Band , with which compositions by Hanns Eisler were also performed. From 1980 he also played in a duo with the tuba player Dietrich Unkrodt , from 1995 in a duo with the clarinetist Jürgen Kupke . Zerbe was also involved in text-music projects with actors, directors and singers (for example Lauren Newton ), including Bert Brecht , Ingeborg Bachmann , Kurt Schwitters and Heiner Müller .

He worked with other contemporary jazz musicians (including Willem Breuker , Helmut Forsthoff , Manfred Schulze ), Charlie Mariano , Toto Blanke , Bernd Konrad , Klaus Koch and Gebhard Ullmann . Since 1996 he has directed the Berlin jazz orchestra Prokopätz , which performs compositions by Eisler, Weill , Breuker and Zerbe in big band format . Experience with this workshop occupation flowed into the Hannes Zerbe Jazz Orchestra founded in 2011 . In a duo with saxophonist Dirk Engelhardt, he also improvises on poems by Gottfried Benn .

Among other things, Zerbe wrote a concerto for alto saxophone and orchestra and reflections on Eisler's Winter Battle Suite. He also composed for the film.

Zerbe is also involved in political contexts. With his ensemble and with the actor Rolf Becker, he designed the performance of The Raft of Medusa - Requiem for Che Guevara by Hans Werner Henze in the cultural program of the Rosa Luxemburg Conference of the left-wing daily newspaper Junge Welt .

Discographic notes

• Sheet metal band (Amiga 1984)
• Rondo a la Fried (BV Haast 1992)
• Ox cart with Unkrodt and the Berlin Wind Association (1994)
• Brecht: Everything is changing with Gina Pietsch (vocals) and Jürgen Kupke (clarinet) (1991)
• Jazz Orchestra Prokopätz (2005)
• Peter Hacks : What is the devil dreaming with Gina Pietsch (Ohreule 2009)
• Hannes Zerbe Jazz Orchester Eisleriana (2011 JazzHausMusik )
• Hannes Zerbe Jazz Orchestra Erlkönig (2013 JazzHausMusik)
• Hannes Zerbe / Jazz Orchestra Berlin: Calcutta (2017 JazzHausMusik)

Radio play music

• 1992: Heinrich Traulsen : König und Besenbinder - Director: Peter Groeger (children's radio play - DS Kultur)

Lexigraphic entries

• Wolf Kampmann (Ed.), With the assistance of Ekkehard Jost : Reclams Jazzlexikon . Reclam, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-15-010528-5 .
• Jürgen Wölfer : Jazz in Germany. The encyclopedia. All musicians and record companies from 1920 until today. Hannibal, Höfen 2008, ISBN 978-3-85445-274-4 .

Web links

• Homepage of Hannes Zerbe
• Homepage of 'Prokopätz'
• Meeting Eisleriana (Rondo)
• Hannes Zerbe at Discogs (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ young world, December 18, 2019, p. 5.