Wolfgang Schmidtke

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Wolfgang Schmidtke (born December 24, 1956 in Lüdenscheid ) is a German jazz musician (saxophone, bass clarinet) and composer.

Live and act

Schmidtke received his first musical lessons on the piano; at the age of 16 the saxophone was added. After graduating from high school, he first studied musicology at the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster ; he then moved to the Cologne University of Music, Wuppertal , where he studied saxophone.

First he played in an improvisation ensemble around Harald Bojé ; then he worked in the fusion jazz band "Das Pferd", which collaborated for recordings with Harry Beckett , Marilyn Mazur , Chris McGregor and Peter Kowald , among others . He also toured with Ginger Baker , Randy Brecker , Horace Parlan , John Lindberg and Bobby McFerrin , but also with Georg Danzer , Lydie Auvray , Karlheinz Stockhausen and symphonic orchestras. In 1998 he founded the "Wolfgang Schmidtke Orchestra", which worked with, among others, Markus Stockhausen , Lee Konitz , Steve Lacy and Alexander von Schlippenbach . He also plays in the “African Sketchbook” project (with Arkady Shilkloper, among others ). As a composer and producer he worked on five CDs by the Essen singer Tom Mega .

Schmidtke organized a series of productions for WDR whose overarching concept is the connection of genres and styles that are normally not combined and presented together: For example, the juxtaposition of a mixed choir with a wind ensemble and a percussionist as part of the Rhenish Music Festival in 1989 or the Production "Tango Westfalica", a connection between medieval music and the world of tango, in which Hans Reichel , Stephan Meinberg , Achim Fink and Christian Thomé contributed (2005). In 2008 he composed a three-movement septet for piano and strings, the piano part of which was played by Simon Nabatov . In 2010 he wrote the music for Carmen - a German musical .

Schmidtke teaches saxophone and jazz improvisation in the Wuppertal department of the Cologne University of Music. Since 2002 he has been artistic director of the Wuppertal music festival “Die 3. ART” and the “Nachtfoyer”, the musical night program of the Wuppertal theaters. He is also the chairman of the Peter Kowald Society .

Awards

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ CD Monk's Mood with Lacy or Schlippenbach and the Wolfgang Schmidtke Orchestra at Jazzwerkstatt 2013 (rec. 1999 and 2001)
  2. ↑ "You have to tell something with the music" Hersfelder Zeitung December 11, 2009
personal data
SURNAME Schmidtke, Wolfgang
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German jazz musician and composer
DATE OF BIRTH December 24, 1956
PLACE OF BIRTH Ludenscheid