Diego Pinera was born 1981 in Montevideo, Uruguay and has lived in Germany since 2003. He studied drumming at the Berklee College of Music (USA), at the University of Music in Havana (Cuba) and at the University of Music and Theater in Leipzig (Germany).
Pinera’s encounters with Latin American music, and with jazz in all its breadth, have led him to develop an unmistakable style. Through the combination of his advanced conception of rhythm, a jazz sound with a Latin touch, and the freedom of improvisation his strong character comes across vividly. In Pinera´s compositions there is musical complexity and virtuosity in abundance imbued with great subtlety and his love to odd meter grooves.
In Uruguay he recorded with the Diego Pinera Trio the album “Buscando” under the Perro Andaluz label. Back in Germany he founded the Berlin Quartet and released in 2010 “Reflexiones” featuring Tony Lakatos. In 2014 the Jazz Thing Next Generation Series “Strange Ways” followed. In May 2016 he went on the cd release tour for “My Picture” with Donny McCaslin and Phil Donkin.
In 2017 Diego Pinera received as bandleader and composer the prestigious prize ECHO Jazz for his album “My picture” in the category drums/ percussion national, recorded in New York with Mark Turner and Ben Street. His first ACT music album “Despertando” was released 2018 and his next ACT album “Odd Wisdom” feat. Donny McCaslin has been considerated for the finalist of the GRAMMY Music Awards 2021.
With this project he played at the Jazzbaltica 2022, live recorded by ZDF. In November 2022 he has been invited to play in 30th anniversary event of ACT at the Berlin Philharmonic together with Wolfgang Haffner, Nils Landgren and many more artists.
Diego Pinera won the German award Deutscher Jazzpreis 2023 for „Best Arrangement of the Year“ of Béla Bartók’s String Quartet No. 3, Sz. 85 and was also nominated for the best composition of the year with „Through Hell“.
Since 2022 he has taught at the University of Music Dresden “Carl Maria von Weber” and since 2023 at the University of applied sciences Osnabrück. He is also a first-call session/ sideman/ clinician and has been touring the world with many different settings and bands. He played with musicians like Donny McCaslin, Mark Turner, Ben Monder, Scott Colley and Ben Street. These brands have been represented by him as endorser: Yamaha Drums, Paiste Cymbals, Rohema, LP Percussion, SM Percussion und Musik Wein Ahead Armor Cases.

Already as a teenager, Julian Wasserfuhr was considered the greatest German trumpet talent since Till Brönner. Together with his brother Roman on the piano they form an inseparable team. Their (spiritual) kinship enhances the way they played together. The closeness of the two brothers lends their music an easily flowing and relaxed character. Whether with the trumpet or flugelhorn, Julian is not one of those musicians who constantly strives to go higher, faster, further. With his warm sound he creates the atmospheric space for the music. His brother Roman, with his accentuated radiant piano, makes no less a contribution to the band's fresh and yet mature and airy sound. Their highly lauded debut "Remember Chet", which they recorded as teenagers, launched the two musicians into the German jazz stratosphere. It didn't take long before there were playing with greats such as Nils Landgren, Lars Danielsson and Wolfgang Haffner, all the while developing their style more and more into their own characteristic, melodic-atmospheric "Wasserfuhr Sound": "I like the courage these two have to keep things simple. You have to be brave to do that. The admirable thing about it is that it is the opposite of show-off jazz," summarises actor Matthias Brandt.

The flute is a rare instrument in jazz. Manrique-Smith’s uncommonly virtuoso and versatile playing is in the foreground in Jin Jim and carries the leading solistic role. In “Weiße Schatten” he combines a whole range of expressive possibilities, from a silvery classical tone, or the consistently breathy attack and bright colours of Latin America, to completely untamed jazz solos. And when Manrique-Smith hums, blows and sings into his instrument, Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson could be in the room.