Edgar Knecht und Frederik Köster
At the moment Edgar Knecht is presenting his highly praised new album “Personal Seasons” together with Frederik Köster, with whom he also recorded the album.
The special thing about the album is that it is probably the only jazzy seasonal program based on German folk songs.
Edgar Knecht is a trained pianist and composer. The “high-flyer at the grand piano” already gave concerts at the age of 14 and in the course of his dazzling career distilled a subject that has become his personal signature.
He combined jazz and folk tunes of different origins with folk songs of his German homeland in a unique way. He succeeded in the feat of dusting off songs that had apparently acquired a patina or those that had fallen into discredit because of their abuse during the Nazi period, and to let them be rediscovered in their sometimes resistant brilliance.
“A very decisive point for me is the exposure of my own musical roots. Other cultures can do this, but in our country it is difficult to deal with folk songs for understandable historical reasons. But there are many that are just as moving as they are absolutely relevant today,” says the musician from Kassel. Together with Rolf Denecke on double bass and Tobias Schulte on drums, he is celebrated worldwide for his unique music.
Frederik Köster (born 14.10.1977) studied school music in Detmold and jazz trumpet and jazz composition/arrangement in Cologne.
Since 2007 Frederik Köster has been Professor for Jazz Trumpet at the Institute of Music at the University of Music Osnabrück and had a teaching position at the University of Music, Drama and Media in Hannover from 2010 – 2018.
The trumpeter from Cologne has already played with: Phil Woods, Albert Mangelsdorff, Ack van Rooyen, Biréli Lagrene, Randy Brecker, Nils Wogram, Simon Nabatov, Nils Landgren, Wolfgang Haffner, Hiram Bullock, Jiggs Whigham, Rick Margitza, Jane Monheit, Lalo Shiffrin, Trilok Gurtu, Nils Petter Molvaer, Johannes Enders, Paul Heller, Niels Klein, Michael Wollny, Florian Weber, WDR Big Band, HR Big Band, Peter Herbolzheimer’s Rhythm Combination & Brass, etc.
Frederik Köster received the prize for the best soloist at the Jazz Hoeilaart International Contest in Belgium in September 2006. The Frederik Köster Quartet was awarded the new German Jazz Prize in Mannheim on 14.02.2009 with a prize money of 10.000€. The prize for the best soloist also went to Frederik Köster. In May 2010 he received the ECHO JAZZ in the category Instrumentalist of the Year national – Brass Instruments/Brass! for his album “ZEICHEN DER ZEIT”. Frederik Köster receives on 29.10.2010 the WDR Jazzpreis in the category “Improvisation”, endowed with 10.000€! In January 2013 Frederik will be awarded the Westfalen Jazzpreis 2013 in Münster! In 2017 he receives the ECHO JAZZ for his album “CANADA” in the category Instrumentalist of the year national – brass instruments/brass!
Frederik Köster has released nine albums under his own name, played with his bands at renowned jazz festivals such as Jazz Baltica, Moers Festival, Euro Jazz Festival in Mexico City or the North Sea Jazz Festvial in Rotterdam and toured Mexico, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Honduras, Portugal, Malaysia, Belgium, South Africa and India with the support of the Goethe Institute.
Frederik’s current project is called Die Verwandlung. Sebastian Sternal (piano) and Joscha Oetz are part of it. (contrabass) and Jonas Burgwinkel (percussion).
In 2009 Frederik Köster founded the jazz collective KLAENG together with Tobias Hoffmann, Niels Klein, Pablo Held, Jonas Burgwinkel, Robert Landfermann and Tobias Christl.
Edgar Knecht has long since earned himself a distinctive place in the international jazz spectrum through the way he combines jazz and world music with classical compositional technique. For his unique arrangements of folk songs he is celebrated worldwide with his trio.
His new album, the seasonal cycle “Personal Seasons”, is the third part of his trilogy of German folk songs. Like its predecessors, it is highly praised by the critics, has been “Jazzalbum der Woche” several times, or in the list of “Best albums of the year”.
The Norddeutscher Rundfunk, for example, finds: “A unique symbiosis of classical music, jazz and German folksongs, which is also unparalleled in its aesthetic coherence.
And Jazzthetik (D) follows up: “His synthesis of German folk songs and a rather traditional sparkling playing style is quite unrivaled. No wonder that the trio is one of the crowd pullers in Germany”.
In the Garana Edgar Knecht meets Frederik Köster, one of the leading German trumpet virtuosos, with whom he has also recorded his current album.
Köster has won all the important German jazz awards in recent years, played with such greats as Randy Brecker, Nils Landgren, Michael Wollny, Nils Petter Molvaer and Biréli Lagrene and is currently touring internationally with the Trilok Gurtu Band. “One of the greatest trumpet discoveries of recent times” (Westdeutscher Rundfunk).
In 2012, Edgar Knecht and his quartet played a celebrated concert in Garana, an evening that many will probably remember.
