Community Music

8 years old. At the piano. In the dark room. Boring finger exercises. He was not allowed to play any song. Resisted every piano lesson.

One day in the children’s choir he stood next to the horns during »Carmina Burana« and immediately tried the instrument. The owner of the instrument became his first horn teacher, who let him play a song after only one lesson. At the next piano lesson he played the piece on the horn for the teacher and said goodbye.

At home, still the piano. But no sheet music. Therefore, at the age of 12, he wrote his first sonatas and quartets. He composed for classical ensembles and jazz combo, played in the orchestra and in hiss own bands; won composition commissions, soloist competitions and prizes in nationwide band and chanson contests. Competition is an invitation to grow, but it's not what he burns for.

At 16, he was often absent due to touring and was finally given a choice by his teacher: »Music or high school diploma?« Moving from Waldorf School to music boarding school put him in the right place at the right time. He met his best friend and founded the band Vanuatu with him, which brought him to pop and jazz stages for the first time. At the same time, he took on organizational tasks at the PODIUM Festival Esslingen, played in the Baden-Württemberg State Youth Orchestra, interned with film music composers in Los Angeles and gave solo concerts in Germany, Switzerland, France and the USA.

Shortly before graduating from high school, he questioned everything. Study horn? Never! He felt too constrained by fixed orders and old-fashioned uniforms. Until he finally came to the real question: Why do I actually have to choose?

He dreamed of changing the traditional music world, of conductor-less orchestras playing by heart, of benefit concerts that transcend the arts. So classical horn studies after all.

In 2015, at 22, he turned his dreams into reality. He put together a benefit concert for Nepal at the »Heimathafen« in Berlin, founded the Stegreif Orchester, which plays by heart and standing up, without a conductor, and studied classical horn in Berlin and jazz trumpet in Leipzig in his own way. When the Konzerthaus Dortmund was one of the first institutions in Germany to establish community music, he was at the forefront.