Marcus Schinkel Trio & Ernie Watts - Crossover Music Birthday Tour

In the organizer's words:

Ernie Watts - sax (USA)
Marcus Schinkel - piano, synth (D)
Wim de Vries - drums (NL)
Fritz Roppel - bass (D)

Crossover music combines musical genres and crosses borders.
Who would not know this better than one of the great saxophonists of jazz, Ernie Watts, who played with legends such as Miles Davis and Frank Zappa, who never cared about respecting musical boundaries. Watts, a two-time Grammy Award winner, brings his unmistakable singing tone and great virtuosity to seeming opposites such as Charlie Haden, Aretha Franklin and the Rolling Stones. These influences characterize his warm West Coast sound, virtuoso runs and strong melodic arcs with influences from pop and world music.

So what could be more natural than to team up with another crossover pianist, Marcus Schinkel, and his trio. This happened for the first time in 2016 at the Bonn Jazz Festival and was immediately hailed by the press and audience as one of the highlights ("Great cinema with pure sound magic!" GA Bonn, May 7, 2016).

With Ernie Watts, the Schinkel Trio goes its own way, beyond the mainstream repertoire of many jazz quartets: the basis are classical works by Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven, but these are masterfully modulated by the formation into the genres of jazz, classical and rock.

Schinkel also interweaves his lyrical piano playing with sounds, as if Keith Jarrett and Pat Metheny Group had met for a musical rendezvous. Since Joe Zawinul and Lyle Mas, only a few keyboard artists have found an innovative sound between concert grand piano and synthesizer. Schinkel has worked with a wide variety of artists such as Peter Herbolzheimer, Charlie Mariano, Markus Stockhausen as well as orchestras (WDR Funkhaus, Beethoven Orchestra, Bolivian National Orchestra).

Since 2017, Marcus Schinkel has been traveling worldwide as a cultural ambassador for various institutions such as the German Embassy, the Goethe Institute or the Humboldt Institute for concerts, master classes and musical encounters: Honduras 2017 and 2019 with a youth orchestra, 2018 founding of a Chinese crossover Beethoven formation in Chengdu/China, 2020 and 2021 concerts in Rome with his trio and Italian guest musicians, 2022 in Romania and France at the Festival Flaneries Musicals de Reims. Since 2023 regularly in Latin America - Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Panama and Bolivia as well as 2024 in Nepa and 2025 in Southwest China.

The long-standing musicians are Wim de Vries on drums, known worldwide through the percussion duo Drumbassadors, and the extremely versatile electric and double bass player Fritz Roppel, former lecturer at the renowned Cologne University of Music, who has made a name for himself in a wide variety of formations ranging from classical, tango, jazz and pop.

Both support the wide range of melodic-romantic lines through to virtuoso passages.

"Tradition is not the keeping of ashes, but the passing on of fire!"
(Thomas More)

Price information:

VVK/ Box Office