Stefan Schultze

A man beyond categories: German Stefan Schultze plays piano in his own Stefan Schultze Trio as well as in the Octoposse octet. He teaches kids at schools in jazz and improvised music with his mobile project School Jazz is Cool Jazz. With his multimedia project Raw Rough Ready, he combines music with dance and video performances. While studying at the Manhattan School of Music, Stefan Schultze won the ASCAP Young Jazz Composers Award for his composition Oracle Night (see track 4). He became a member of renowned BMI Jazz Composers Workshop and conducted his own quintet-with-strings arrangement of Karawahn (see track 6) at Carnegie Hall. He won the first prize for Green Falling (see track 5) at the ArtEZ Composition Contest in Enschede, Netherlands, and he was awarded Best International Jazz Band even twice in a row in Granada, Spain. Stefan said, “I don't shy away from doing things that are uneconomical or crazy. At the end of the day, one can manage anything as long as you really fancy it.”