Valentin Gregor

Valentin Gregor (* 13. May 1963 in Bonn ) is a German jazz / rock / pop - Violinist , -Bratschist, singer and choir director.

Career

Valentin Gregor is the son of the folk song researcher Josef Gregor . He began taking violin lessons at the age of seven; an encounter in 1988 with his future teacher Hajo Hoffmann sparked his interest in jazz. Gregor studied jazz violin at the Cologne University of Music from 1988 to 1992 and was a scholarship holder of the Berklee College of Music , Boston / USA from 1995 to 1997 . During his two-year stay in the USA he gave concerts a. a. with Stéphane Grappelli , Herb Geller , Ed Harris, Garrison Fewell , Duduka da Fonseca , Hans Glawischnig and Nicolas Simion . Since his return to Germany he has been active both as a solo violinist and as musical director in various theater and band productions. These engagements included the Cirque du Soleil , the Deutsches Schauspielhaus , Hamburg, the Maxim-Gorki-Theater , Berlin, the Deutsche Theater , Berlin, the Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hannover and the Hans-Peter Wodarz dinner show Pomp Duck and Circumstance .

Gregor played as solo violonist a. a. for the band Calexico and the Electric Light Band (with Phil Bates, singer of the Electric Light Orchestra Part 2, ELO Part II ). He also worked in Carlos Bica quintet DIZ . Since 1983 he has performed irregularly with the actor Hans-Werner Meyer with the a cappella group Echo-Echo , which disbanded in 1988 and reunited in 1999 under the name Meier & die Geier .

Since 1997 he has lived in Berlin with short breaks, where he initially worked at the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf Music School . In 2004 he carried out a teaching project in the favelas of Salvador da Bahia (Brazil). From 2006 he was a regular lecturer at the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival in Alaska / USA.

In 2007, The Berlin Songbook was released as the CD debut of his violin-piano duo Berlynatic Arkestra with pianist Victor Alcántara . Valentin Gregor has been touring Germany several times a year with the a cappella group Meier & die Geier together with TV cabaret artist Chin Meyer since 2009 . Since 2008 he has played in Fee Stracke's band Expulsion from Paradise and from 2009 to 2017 in the prog rock band The Mightiest Ever with pianist Tim Sund . Currently (2019) he is touring with the Celtic rock band The Aberlours . Since 2019 he has been conducting his own choir Unifying Voices in Berlin-Moabit.

Since 2013 he has been teaching at the SRH University of Popular Arts for the subjects of ear training, ensemble playing, ensemble management and string instruments as a major. For more than two decades he gave workshops at universities and regional music academies, especially for violin, viola, cello and double bass on the topics of string instruments in jazz / rock / pop and improvisation .

Discography

2001 Geierfreundschaft - the album of the a cappella group "Meier & die Geier"
2004 Smellodie - the debut album under its own name
2007 The Berlin Songbook - His Duo Album with Victor Alcántara (piano)
2013 Now - The Progressive Jazz Rock Album from "The Mightiest Ever"

Web links

Individual evidence

personal data
SURNAME	Gregor, Valentin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German jazz violinist, singer and choir director
DATE OF BIRTH	May 13, 1963
PLACE OF BIRTH	Bonn

[1] Website of the a cappella group

[2] The Mightiest Ever website

[3] Unifying Voices