Bruno Walter was a German-born conductor, pianist and composer. Born in Berlin, he left Germany in 1933 to escape the Third Reich, was naturalised as a French citizen in 1938, and settled in the United States in 1939. He worked closely with Gustav Mahler, whose music he helped to establish in the repertory, held major positions with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Concertgebouw Orchestra, Salzburg Festival, Vienna State Opera, Bavarian State Opera, Staatsoper Unter den Linden and Deutsche Oper Berlin, among others, made recordings of historical and artistic significance, and is widely considered to be one of the great conductors of the 20th century.
Dreimal sieben Gedichte aus Albert Girauds "Pierrot lunaire", commonly known simply as Pierrot lunaire, Op. 21, is a melodrama by Arnold Schoenberg. It is a setting of 21 selected poems from Albert Giraud's cycle of the same name as translated into German by Otto Erich Hartleben. The work is written for reciter who delivers the poems in the sprechstimme style accompanied by a small instrumental ensemble. Schoenberg had previously used a combination of spoken text with instrumental accompaniment, called "melodrama", in the summer-wind narrative of the Gurre-Lieder, which was a fashionable musical style popular at the end of the nineteenth century. Though the music is atonal, it does not employ Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, which he did not use until 1921.
Francis Wolff was a record company executive, photographer and record producer. Wolff's skills, as an executive and a photographer, were important contributions to the success of the Blue Note record label.
Michael Mantler is an Austrian avant-garde jazz trumpeter and composer of contemporary music.
Walter Trampler was a German musician and teacher of the viola and viola d'amore.
Philip John "Jon" Hiseman was an English drummer, recording engineer, record producer, and music publisher. He was married to saxophonist Barbara Thompson from 1967 until his death in 2018 following surgery to remove a brain tumour.
Free Music Production (FMP) is a German record company, record label and promotional company that specialises in free jazz.
John Hollenbeck is a jazz drummer and composer from Binghamton, New York known for his work with The Claudia Quintet and Bob Brookmeyer.
Duck and Cover were a multinational avant-rock septet founded in West Germany in 1983, comprising Chris Cutler (UK), Heiner Goebbels (GER), and Alfred Harth (GER) from Cassiber; Tom Cora (US) and Fred Frith (UK) from Skeleton Crew; Dagmar Krause (GER) from Art Bears; and George Lewis (US) from the ICP Orchestra. The ensemble was initially commissioned for the 1983 Moers Festival at the request of festival director Burkhard Hennen to Alfred Harth.
Ekkehard Wölk is a German pianist, arranger, and composer, working in both classical and jazz idioms.
Harry Winter, born Horst Winter, was a German-Austrian singer, musician and band director.
Michael Wollny is a German jazz pianist and a professor at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Leipzig. He has played with international musicians including Joachim Kühn, Tamar Halperin, Marius Neset, Andreas Schaerer, Émile Parisien and Vincent Peirani, and recorded award-winning albums. In his Michael Wollny Trio, he has played with percussionist Eric Schaefer and bassist Tim Lefebvre.
The German Dance and Entertainment Orchestra was a musical ensemble formed in 1942 by musicians Franz Grothe and Georg Haentzschel on the initiative of Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. It was an attempt to create an acceptable alternative to jazz, which was a popular genre among Germans but was considered a form of degenerate music by the Nazis due to its racial associations. The self-styled "rhythmic dance music" produced by the German Dance and Entertainment Orchestra was intended especially to satisfy the musical desires of military personnel, thus preventing them from listening to British radio broadcasts which also contained anti-Nazi propaganda material. Walter Dobschinski worked with the ensemble.
Jack Cooper is an American composer, arranger, orchestrator, multireedist, and music educator. He has performed with, written music for performed or recorded by internationally known pop, jazz, and classical artists.
The Berlin Jazz Orchestra is a 17 piece concert jazz orchestra based in Berlin, Germany. The orchestra has been critically acclaimed by prominent periodicals such as the Berliner Tagesspiegel, Märkische Allgemeine, Jazzpodium, and Jazzthetik.
Update is a jazz album produced by 44 Records and producer Jacky Wagner, released in 2004. The album was critically acclaimed by Jazz Podium magazine as the first initial recording for the Berlin Jazz Orchestra with vocal artist Marc Secara. Jazz artist Jiggs Whigham is featured on this release as both instrumentalist (trombone) and musical director and Steve Gray's arrangements are featured on this recording.
Marc Secara is a German singer and recording artist known for jazz, American pop music, and German popular repertoire. He is also a member of the German singing group the Berlin Voices.
Häns'che Weiss was a German gypsy jazz and modern jazz guitarist in the tradition of Django Reinhardt. From 1969-1972 he played with the Schnuckenack Reinhardt Quintett, after which he made five albums with his own ensemble playing acoustic gypsy jazz along with self-composed and traditional gypsy tunes. From the early 80s to his death he played in a more mainstream/bebop jazz style with other German jazz artists including the violinist Martin Weiss, and the double bass player Vali Mayer.
Karl Ludwig Bruno Seidler-Winkler was a German conductor, pianist and music arranger.
Uschi Brüning is a German jazz and soul singer and songwriter. She made her career in East Germany and was 42 when the Berlin wall was breached. She has transitioned and sustained her career more successfully than other former East German performance artists post-reunification, though her fan base remains concentrated principally in the east.
