Sebastian Bohlen

Sebastian Böhlen (born March 29, 1986 in Schweinfurt ) is a German jazz musician ( guitar , composition ).

Live and act

Böhlen, who grew up in East Friesland, played tea with cream as a student in a sextet (with Timo Vollbrecht, among others ). He first studied jazz guitar and composition in Mannheim with Frank Kuruc , before completing his master's degree at the Manhattan School of Music in New York in 2012 . Further studies in Cologne followed. From 2006 to 2008 he was a member of the Federal Jazz Orchestra , where he worked under Bill Dobbins , Jiggs Whigham and Ed Partyka .

Concert performances with musicians such as Randy Brecker , David Liebman , Kurt Elling , Al Jarreau or Kurt Rosenwinkel and his own ensembles have taken him through Europe, North America and Australia; he also appeared in the Berlin Philharmonic and Carnegie Hall . In his compositions, Böhlen combines modern jazz with elements and forms of classical music. He works “very specifically with mood swings, sometimes with the restrained wildness of New Jazz, sometimes extremely lyrical and reflective.” For the third album under his own name, Born under this soft wind , he set a text by the author Tina Hartmann to music. The text, actually the libretto for a cantata , describes the thoughts, emotions and experiences of a refugee who has arrived in Europe. He can also be heard on an album with his brother Andreas Böhlen's jazz band .

Since 2013 he has been teaching at the Mannheim University of Music.

Prizes and awards

In 2005, Böhlen won the Lower Saxony youth jazz competition with the sextet Tee mit Sahne . He has received the ASCAP Young Composer Award twice, most recently in 2012. He was the winner of the BuJazz0 Composition Prize in 2013 and in 2014 received a working grant from the Ministry for Science and Culture of Lower Saxony. In 2015 he was a prizewinner at the global guitar competition at the Jazz Festival Montreux .

Discographic notes

• Sebastian Böhlen Band Fun Flowers ( Laika Records 2019, with Magnus Schriefl , Stefan Karl Schmid , Max Leiß, Peter Gall )
• Born under this soft wind (Laika Records 2017, with Efrat Alony , Andreas Böhlen, Bernhard Meyer, Peter Gall)
• Miscela (Laika Records 2014, with Stefan Karl Schmid, Jakob Dreyer, Peter Gall)
• Sebastian Böhlen Sextet 2 1/2 Concerti for Small Ensemble ( Mons Records 2012, with Matthias Bergmann , Stefan Karl Schmid, Volker Engelberth , Jakob Dreyer, Peter Gall)

Web links

• Web presence
• Biography (Mons Records)
• The Sebastian Böhlen Quintet jazzes freshly and carefree in the level 3 Heilbronn voice , January 19, 2009
• Sebastian Böhlen at Discogs (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Sebastian Böhlen Quintet in the Bürgerhaus ( Memento from February 15, 2017 in the Internet Archive )
2. ↑ New Hörfutter from the Bremer music scene , Weser-Kurier , December 14, 2012
3. ↑ Sebastian Böhlen (Laika)
4. ↑ https://www.jazz-over-hannover.de/news/charlotte-lucio-und-bastian-erringen-begehre-jazzspatzen-tee-mit-sahne-ist-ensemble-landessieger-bei-jugend-jazzt/
5. ↑ 2012 ASCAP Foundation Young Jazz Composer Awards Recipients Announced
6. ↑ Six young composers receive scholarships (press release)