Musician Bio – Uli Beckerhoff

Ulrich Beckerhoff was co-founder of the groups Jazztrack, Riot and Changes with which he traveled nearly all of Europe and performed at almost all big festivals.

He has received numerous national and international awards.

More than 40 LPs/CDs have been recorded under his name, or with him as co-leader or soloist and he has performed with a number of European and American artists: Albert Mangelsdorff, Palle Danielsson, John Scofield, Maria Joao, Charlie Mariano, Zbigniew Seifert, Adam Nussbaum and more.

He was the leader of a trio including John Marshall and Jasper van’t Hof as well as of a quartet with John Abercrombie, Arild Andersen and John Marshall.

At the EBU concert in Barcelona he represented ARD and was invited as a soloist by guitarist Volker Kriegel to join a tour for the Goethe Institute that led them through eleven African countries.

He worked with the United Jazz and Rock Ensemble, the NDR Big Band, the Michael Gibbs Orchestra, the Manfred Schoof Big Band and the jazz ensemble of Hessischer Rundfunk.

With Jazzpool NRW he made a guest appearance at the EXPO in Seville and, together with John Taylor and Maria Pia De Vito at the EXPO in Hanover.

He headed bands with musicians such as John Taylor, Anders Jormin, Rita Marcotulli, Matthias Nadolny, Gunnar Plümer, Jo Thönes, Michael Berger, Wolfgang Engstfeld, Maria Pia DeVito, Peter Weiss, Peter O`Mara, Bruno Castellucci, Glauco Venier and others.

His project LA VOCE with singers Norma Winstone, Rosani Reis, Giacomo di Benedetto and bassist Hartmut Kracht was invited to perform at many concerts and festivals.

He made guest appearances as a soloist of the NuJazz group BoomBoom as well as the symphony orchestras of the cities of Bremen, Oldenburg, the radio philharmonic of the NDR in Hanover and the orchestra in Nuremberg and Trier.

He is the bandleader of the International Skoda Allstar Band.

Beckerhoff was artistic consultant in Weimar, which was the European capital of culture in 1999 and is currently artistic director of jazzahead!, Europe’s biggest jazz trade fair.

He taught masters classes at jazz workshops in Berlin, Burghausen, Münster, Weimar, Bremen, Trier and Udine and is a professor at the jazz department of Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen.

He composes music for film, audio play and theater and writes for different orchestras such as jazz combo, big band and symphony orchestra.

He worked with renowned German film, theatre and audio play directors like Werner Schroeter, Rudolf Thome, Hans Kressnik and Gottfried von Einem.

Next to playing in his electronic-acoustic trio with drummer Stefan Ulrich and keyboarder Michael Berger, Beckerhoff plays acoustic concerts with overtone singer and multi-instrumentalist Reinhard Schimmelpfeng which are influenced by different musical cultures.

In the RoRoRo Jazzlexikon, Martin Kunzler describes Ulrich Beckerhoff as a musician who “in a short time has conquered a top position in German and European jazz, … with his unique, dynamically fine differentiated expression whose appeal is described by critic Joachim Ernst Berendt as a match of typical sensitivity with great intensity and strength.”

original source: www.ulrich-beckerhoff-jazz.com