6^th Edition 2021

Born into a musical family, aged 7 he found out that he wants to be a trumpet player, after investing his lunch money for a whole school camp week, into a 10 CD-collection of Louis Armstrong. He studied in several universities (Vienna, Cologne, Graz…) and graduated with honors in jazz- trumpet & classical trumpet (-education).After his graduation he won the first prize for trumpet at the International Jazzsolist-Award “MasterJam Fest” in Odessa Ukraine, alongside other prize winners like Joey Alexander (US), Yissy Garcia (Cuba) & others.In the recent years he played around the globe, released his europewide acclaimed debut-Album “Ethology” (2016/ Dominik Fuss’ Rumpus) and initiated and leaded large ensembles like the Spittelberg JazzOrchestra, an young all-star big band playing new vienesse composers and their music.A bit later he started the family band Affair Dreyfuss (Affäre Dreyfuss): a band containing three members of one family (fuss), playing originals and arrangements from the bop-era and beyond. They released the album “In Good Company” last year (2018) in June. His newest project is the Duo Fuss/Leichtfried. Together they explore the borders between jazz tradition, classical and modern music, and played already all around the world together: Vietnam, Malyasia, Tunisia & Montenegro”Fuss and Leichtfried approach the freedom that the duo presents with courage in the use of space.” (Xavier Plus – Austrian Broadcasting Corporation, ORF)

Worked with:
Improvised & Contemporary Music:
Dee Dee Bridgewater, Vinko Globokar, George Lewis, Anthony Coleman, Dan Pugach Nonet, Daniel Riegler’s Studio Dan, Mathias Ruegg & Lia Pale, Dick Oatts, Heinz Czadeks Project Two, Eur(o)radio JazzOrchestra 2018, Oxana Omelchuk, Loren Stillman, Nicole Zuraisits, Joey Alexander, Ed Neumeister, Markus Stockhausen, Christoph Cech, Fabian Rucker, Phil Nykrin,…Classical Music: Juan Diego Flórez, Synchron Stage Orchestra (1st trumpet), Tonkünstler Orchester NÖ, Orchester der Vereinigten Bühnen Wien, Turkmenistan National Orchestra,…Popular Music: Parov Stelar Band, Norbert Schneider Band, Josh, Seiler & Speer, Johann Sebastian Bass Orchestra, Velojet, Martin Spengler und die foischn Wiener, Carla Natasha Salsa Band, Düsenfried & the Stuffgivers,…Pedagogic Work: private trumpet tutor &    @Musikschule Klangspiele (1050)

Pianist and composer – based in Vienna, Austria

Lecturer for piano at JAM MUSIC LAB Private University, Vienna

Master of Arts 2009 in Jazz piano at Musik und Kunst Privatuniversität, Vienna

scholarship 2012 (BMUKK), work stay in New York

2017,2019 and 2020 composition fundings (art grants): Lower Austria,
Cultural Department of the City of Vienna

winner of the Lower Austrian Cultural Music Award 2021

selected record productions:
“Little Tales Of Light And Sorrow” Duo Fuss / Leichtfried
“Misery Is Wasted On The Miserable” Elektro Jirschi
“Magicians Sounds And Other Beauties” Jörg Leichtfried Trio
“Rooms” Duo Bertl Mayer / Jörg Leichtfried

musical cooperation with (selection):
Wolfgang Puschnig, Hans Strasser, Michael Erian, Cameron Brown, Klemens Marktl, Stefan Pista Bartus, Hubert Bründlmayer, Dominik Fuss, Bertl Mayer, Hans Salomon, Klaus Dickbauer, Alexander Wladigeroff, Georg Buxhofer, Daniel Aebi, Piotr Baron, Andy Middleton
national and international concerts (selection):
ACFNY (New York), Somethin’ Jazz Club (New York), Dresden Jazzfestival (Germany), Harlem Jazz Club Barcelona (Spain), Porgy & Bess Vienna, Birdland Vienna, Cultural Forum Theran (Iran), Lublin Jazz Festival (Poland), Kraljevo Jazz Festival (Serbia), Jazz Festival Lungau (Salzburg), International Jazz Piano Festival Kalisz (Poland), ÖKF Warschau (Poland), Ermitage Garden Jazz Festival Moscow, Philharmonic Hall Belgorod (Russia), Odessa Jazz Festival (Ukraine), Vinnitsa Jazz Festival (Ukraine), Jazzfesival Jazzablanca (Casablanca, Morocco), Warsaw Jazzfestival (Poland), Krakow Jazzfestival Piwnica Pod Baranami (Poland), Jazzycolors Jazz Festival (Paris), Jazz Festival Spania Dolina (Slovakia), Podgoricko Kulturno Ljeto (Montenegro), Carthage Jazz Festival (Tunisia), Binh Minh Jazzclub Hanoi (Vietnam), Sax N Art Jazzclub Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam), No Black Tie Jazzclub Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Europa In Musica Rome (Italy), Haskovo Jazz Festival (Bulgaria)

The Quintet was founded in 2007 as an integral part of the Croatian Association of Trombone and Tuba players – Busina, with the specific goal of introducing brass chamber music to the audience. It is one of leading brass ensembles in Croatia, having performed more than 30 concerts in the last two years. The members of this international Ensemble come from Croatia, Romania and Hungary and are among the most awarded music performers. They are also principal players in their prospective orchestras and work as pedagogues in music schools and academies. The program of the Ensemble is diverse; it ranges from original works for brass quintet to arrangements of popular renaissance, baroque and classical pieces, dixie, blues and jazz music as well as popular movie soundtracks.

Beside performing throughout Croatia (Požega, Vinkovci, Petrinja, Sisak, Zagreb, Zabok, Rovinj, Samobor, Koprivnica, Šibenik, among others), the Ensemble has a strong international exchange and in the last three years it has performed concerts in Greece (Parnassos Hall), Turkey (Ankara), Slovenia (Kazinski Hall of the Slovene Theater), Israel (Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Raanana), Georgia (Tbilisi), United Kingdom (English Brass Academy in Shrewsbury) and Japan (Sagamihara, Yokohama), where they performed the first ever Japanese performance of Eric Ewazen’s Shadowcatcher, a concerto for brass quintet and orchestra. In 2017 they performed the European premiere of the same piece with accompanied by the Vojvodina Symphonic Orchestra in Novi Sad, Serbia and in 2019 together with the State Philharmonic in Bacau, Romania.

The Ensemble often performs with the Symphonic Wind Orchestra of the Croatian Armed Forces, and together they have premiered three pieces written specially for brass quintet and wind orchestra. Also, Busina Brass Quintet is an ensemble-in-residence of the Summer Music Academy Vodice.

The members of the Ensemble gave master classes in many countries, from Europe to Asia and United states.

Kuinteti i Tunxhit përbëhet nga instrumentistë profesionistë njëherësh gjenerata e parë e tunxhit në Kosovë. Ansambli ka një repertor mjaft të gjerë. Stili muzikor është një kombinim i periudhave të ndryshme muzikore duke mos përjashtuar edhe veprat dhe këngët e ndryshme te ditëve të sotme. Ansambli rëndësi të veçantë i kushton interpretimit të muzikës shqiptare, duke mos përjashtuar edhe muzikën xhaz dhe atë të popullarizuar. Anëtarët e ansamblit përveç se njihen si promotor i muzikës në hapësira publike përbëjnë edhe Kuintetin e Tunxhit brenda Forcës së Sigurisë së Kosovës. Kunteti i Tunxhit është prezantuar në festivale të ndryshme të cilat janë bartëse të kultivimit dhe zhvillimit të muzikës serioze në Kosovë dhe Shqipëri si: Kosova Kamerfest, International Albanian Brass Festival, Netët e Prishtinës, Festivali HAPU, Kosova Brass Festival etj.

Instrumentistët:

Avni Krasniqi – Trumbetë / Ardit Pira – Trumbetë I / Bledar Bujupi – Korno / Betim Krasniqi – Trombon / Meriton Ferati – Tubë

Since the fall of 2000, Brent Shires has played third horn for the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra. He arrived in the state in 1999 to serve as the first full-time horn professor for the University of Central Arkansas, where he teaches horn lessons and serves as Brass Chamber Music Coordinator. He also teaches education-related classes such as high brass methods and brass pedagogy, and some courses in music theory and history. Brent is an active performer outside the ASO as well, playing principal horn with the symphony orchestras of Conway and Pine Bluff, and is the founding hornist of Pinnacle Brass, the resident quintet at UCA. In the summers, Brent is a horn faculty member at Dixie Band Camp hosted at UCA, and Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in western Michigan. Brent grew up in the suburbs of Rochester, New York, where musicianship was encouraged early on by his school and parents (who now live in Little Rock). His mother gave him piano lessons for two years before he started on the horn in the fifth grade school band. In addition to weekly horn lessons, band and youth orchestra, Brent picked up the trumpet and learned jazz style in high school.

Terrie Shires teaches class piano and serves as a collaborative artist at the University of Central Arkansas. As the UCA Horn Studio accompanist, she works with students as well as visiting artists such as Randy Gardner, James Naigus, Audrey Good, Jeff Nelsen, Roger Kaza, Richard Todd, Eli Epstein, Thomas Bacon, and Richard King. She has served as an official accompanist for the International Horn Competition of America, the 45th International Horn Symposium solo competition, and at the Mid-South and Southeast Horn Workshops. Mrs. Shires has worked as a choir accompanist at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in Michigan. She has played keyboard for the Arkansas Repertory Theatre and is a substitute keyboardist with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Music from Hanover College, Indiana, and her MM in Piano Performance and Pedagogy at Northern Illinois University. Her primary teachers were C. Kimm Hollis and William Koehler. Terrie has performed in Austria, France, Spain, Italy, Luxembourg, Taiwan, and 23 American states. She has also served on the faculty of Millikin University’s Preparatory Department, adjunct at Hendrix College, and interim at Silver Lake College.

Dr. Gail Robertson has a distinguished reputation as a euphonium artist and teacher, soloist, and clinician. She has also garnered worldwide attention for leadership, her work as composer/arranger, and as a musical talent. Robertson serves as Associate Professor of Tuba and Euphonium at the University of Central Arkansas. She is the former head of the jazz area where she coordinated jazz events and conducted the top jazz ensemble. In addition to teaching, she performs as tubist in the faculty brass quintet, Pinnacle Brass. Robertson earned her B.A. degree from the University of Central Florida and a M.M. from Indiana University  and D.M.A. from Michigan State University where she was a University Distinguished Fellow. Robertson has studied with Harvey Phillips, Phil Sinder, and Ava Ordman. She performed for ten years with the world-famous Tubafours at Walt Disney World, Orlando, where she was musical supervisor/chief arranger and produced a highly acclaimed CD, Tubas Under the Boardwalk. Dr. Robertson has taught on the faculties of Eastern Michigan University, the University of Central Florida, Bethune-Cookman University, the University of Florida. Dr. Robertson is President of the International Tuba and Euphonium Association (ITEA) and serves on the Board of Directors of the Leonard Falcone Tuba and Euphonium Festival. Robertson is a recipient of Tau Beta Sigma’s highest honor, the Outstanding Service to Music Award. She was awarded the ITEA’s Clifford Bevan Award for Excellence in Research for her research manuscript, “Restoring the Euphonium’s Legacy as Cello of the Wind Band.”

www.GailRobertson.com
www.SymbiosisDuo.com 

From 1988 until 1998 Sauter was principal trumpet in the Bremen State Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1991 he founded the annual Bremen International Trumpet Festival,^[2][3] and, in 1994, the Bremen Trumpet Academy. In 1995 he played with the Philharmonia Orchestra (London) in the presence of HRH Prince Charles at St. James‘s Palace, in 2000 at the Vatican in St. Peter‘s Square for Pope John Paul II and in 2001 with the China National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Muhai Tang in the Forbidden City in Beijing. He recorded with EMI Classics a CD series of world premiere recordings World of Baroque, with rediscovered compositions of baroque and early classical masters like Alessandro Scarlatti, Georg Reutter and J. M. Molter, that had not been performed in the last 250 years.^{[citation needed]} Besides the baroque repertory, he has enlarged the repertory of contemporary original literature for piccolo trumpet with works by Julien-François Zbinden, Harald Genzmer and Jan Koetsier. In 2004 he premiered three pieces of the Czech composer Juraj Filas, whose teacher was a student of Dvořák, two of them at the Beethovenfest (Bonn). In 2008 he premiered a trumpet concerto for piccolo trumpet and symphony orchestra which was written for him by the Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis and arranged by Róbert Gulya in the Berlin and Cologne Philharmony. In 2004 he founded the Wartburg Festival on the Wartburg, and in 2005 the international choir and music festival Musica Sacra a Roma in Rome and at the Vatican. In 2006, for the 250th birthday of Mozart, he initiated the Little Amadeus & Friends Aktionstag for German grammar schools together with Peter Will, the television producer of the international children’s TV series (awarded with the Echo Klassik in Germany). In 2007-2008 he initiated and played 80 Little Amadeus Live concerts in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Otto Sauter is artistic director of the ensemble Ten of the Best and has worked with orchestras and artists like RSO Prague, RSO MDR and HR, Czech Philharmonic, Malmö Symphony Orchestra, Beethoven Orchester Bonn, Bachcollegium Leipzig, Sinfonia Varsovia, Münchner Kammerorchester, Cappella Istropolitana, Edita Gruberová, José Carreras, Gösta Winbergh, Ivo Pogorelić, Elena Bashkirova, Jochen Kowalski, Mario Adorf, Michael Mendl, Zubin Mehta, Daniel Barenboim, Christoph Poppen, Marcello Viotti. To mark the 50-year anniversary of UNICEF Deutschland he gave a series of concerts in Germany. Each year he invites international artists like Montserrat Caballé and Bobby McFerrin to give a joint concert for the Otto Sauter Foundation on the shores of Lake Constance.

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Albanian Brass Quintet & Percussion This ensemble has been created since 2007 by 6 friends. The constituent artists of this ensemble are well-known names in the field of music and very important for the institutions where they work, such as: the National Opera and Ballet Theater and the Symphony Orchestra of the Albanian Radio Television. This ensemble has been part of numerous ceremonies and concerts at home and abroad. Artists being very compact with each other, have become the inspiration for different composers who have written or brought back numerous works in a very special approach. Their success also consists thanks to a very diverse and attractive repertoire, which aims to bring the public closer to art but also to promote Albanian music.

It is created by famous artists in Albanian. They are very important at the respective Institution where they develop their artistic activity like in: National Opera House Orchestra, Radio Television Orchestra, Pedagogues at University of Arts, Army Orchestra.  They reason why they create these ensemble is to unify the Brass Clasess in Albania, to increase the artistic level in general and also to give to the public a profesional inerpretation sharing Albanian and foreing music acros the world.

Born in Ancona, he gives concerts as a soloist, in chamber ensembles and orchestras. He has recorded for Rai, Radio Vatican, Sky Classic, recorded for the record company Concert-Music Media and published by the publishing house Academy. As a soloist he has performed under the baton of Maestro Leonardo Quadrini accompanied by the Symphony Orchestra of Bacau, the Bulgarian National Symphony Orchestra, Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra (Russia, Udmurtia), from the Campania Chamber Orchestra and lately by State Philharmonic Orchestra of Vidin in Bulgaria. He has given recitals in Spain, Germany, Bulgaria and Slovakia. He was the first tuba player to win the prestigious Price “Nino Rota”, 2015 previously attributed to artists like K. Ricciarelli and J.Horowitz.

Hrvoje Pintarić, native of Bjelovar, Croatia, is a graduate of the Zagreb Music Academy where he studied with with Stjepan Mateić, principal horn of the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra. He continued his studies in Prague under the tutelage of Zdeněk Tylšar, the renowned principal horn of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. While pursuing his studies he was a member of the Croatian National Army Orchestra, following which he was named principal horn of the Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra, a post he occupied from 1997 to 2004. He toured extensively in Europe with this orchestra and was often featured as soloist. He is a founding member of the well known Croatian brass quintet Simply Brass. He regularly performs concerts as a soloist and chamber musician in Croatia as well as in the United States (most notably Lincoln Center in New York, Spain, Austria, Montenegro and Canada. Since 2004 he is associate principal horn with the Croatian National Opera Orchestra, a post he occupies to this day. Mr. Pintarić, is a Dieter Otto Horns artist and performs on their instruments exclusively.