Biography of Klaus Gesing

Having studied both clarinet and saxophone for some years (he won the prestigious "Jugend Jazzt" Award of NRW on tenor sax in 1988) he moved to the Netherlands in 1990.

He was professionally trained in Jazz (John Ruocco) and Classical (Leo van Oostrom) Saxophone at the Royal Conservatory of Music in The Hague, where he finished his studies with a special remark for his compositions and artistic expression. He had additional studies with David Liebman in Pennsylvania.

In the Netherlands he led his own group "The Jahi Jazz Ensemble", writing all the material and focusing on composition. With this group he had various radio broadcasts, concerts and festival appearances.

He was awarded Best Soloist at the Middelzee Jazzfestival in 1994, won the Van Merlen Jazz Price of The Hague in 1995.

In 1996, now principally based in Austria, he travelled to the Vienne International Jazzcompetition in France, where he was again provided with the Price as "Best Soloist".

In the following years he opened up collaborations with a variety of artists, icluding Kenny Wheeler, Norma Winstone, Martin France, Michel Godard, Gabriele Mirabassi, Glauco Venier, Ricardo Zegna, Jarrod Cagwin and others.



He published several CDs in Duo with Glauco Venier ("Klaus Gesing and Glauco Venier play Bach", "Klaus Gesing and Glauco Venier play Songs") began an intensive collaboration with Norma Winstone. The result is the Trio CD "Chamber Music" (Universal Music 2002) where they had appearances in the Austrian Television, Austrian Radio (Ö1) and recently at the Bath International Jazzfestival.

Being member of the 'JazzBigBand Graz' he contributed two of his own widely noted compositions and arrangements to the CD "A Life Affair" published at Universal Music in 2004.



In 2000 he presented his first CD under his own name, consequently called "First Booke of Songes".

He now presents his second album as a leader entitled "Heartluggage".



Klaus Gesing recently entered the realm of Film Music with two very different projects:

One is a complete Soundtrack to the Mute Movie Classical "Joan of Arc" by the Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer that he composed in collaboration with the Italian organplayer and composer Paolo Paroni. It is performed life with organ, soprano saxophone and a 30 piece choir.

The other is a multi media performance based on the only Film by Samuel Beckett "Film". This work has been commissioned by the 16th Grabenfest , a widely renowned contemporary composition festival in Vienna. "Film" is a Soloperformance, using two Videoscreens, live improvisation and electronics.