Lorenz Kellhuber Trio

“Hardly anyone is likely to walk between jazz and ‘classical piano music’ in such a spectacularly oscillating way as the pianist Lorenz Kellhuber. Whether improvising over ostinati in changing positions or between free tonality and bound harmonic sound anchors, Lorenz Kellhuber creates an intimate, concentrated situation between himself, the piano, the room and his audience,” writes the Neue Musikzeitung about his current solo album “Live at Elbphilharmonie Hamburg”.

Classical music is firmly anchored in his DNA, jazz taught him to stand on his own two feet, and in free improvisation Lorenz Kellhuber repeatedly finds the boundless fulfillment of his musical vision, a Contemporary Chamber Music. He plays with his own musical history, intuitively seeking out various stations of his musical imprint, ranging from the Baroque to the Modern. With Felix Henkelhausen on double bass, one of the greatest talents of the European jazz scene, and Moritz Baumgärtner, one of the most versatile and innovative drummers of recent years, Lorenz Kellhuber has formed “one of the best German piano trios” (Audio) in 2018. Together they celebrate the fusion of three musical souls at the highest level, “an ebb and flow of interplay, monologues, duets and trios whose brilliance is impossible to resist. A bandleader and pianist, very individual, unconventional and full of ideas, with two congenial partners” (Jazzpodium). After the two recordings “Samadhi” (2019) and “About:Blank” (2020), “Low Intervention”, the trio’s third release and already Lorenz Kellhuber’s tenth under his own name, will now be released at the end of 2023.

Born in Munich in 1990 as the son of two church musicians, Lorenz Kellhuber began classical piano training at the age of five. At the age of eight he played his first concert and began to compose his own music. At the age of eleven he became a junior student at the HfKM Regensburg and later received lessons from Prof. Franz Massinger, a student of Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli. Shortly thereafter, he was discovered by Rob Bargad (Nat Adderley Quintet) who introduced him extensively to Jazz. At the age of only 16, Kellhuber passed the highly gifted exam and became a student at the Jazz Institute in Berlin. During his frequent stays in New York, he also received lessons from Fred Hersch and Sophia Rosoff, and graduated in 2010 as one of the world’s youngest Bachelor graduates. Since then, his concerts have taken him throughout Europe, to the USA and to South America. He has played on international stages such as the Berlin Philharmonie, the Isarphilharmonie Munich, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, the Montreux Jazz Festival, Basel Jazz Festival, Getxo Jazz Festival, Bohemia Jazz Festival, Mar del Plata Jazz Festival, Jazzwoche Burghausen. Concerts as sideman and co-leader he played alongside Ed Partyka, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Charles Lloyd, Ack van Rooyen, Johannes Enders, Adele Neuhauser & Edi Nulz, Jesse Simpson, Orlando Le Fleming, Steven Heelein, Obed Calvaire, Bob Mintzer and many more. In the summer of 2014, he became the first German musician to receive the first place in the renowned Montreux Jazz Piano Solo Competition. In 2016 he was nominated for the ECHO Jazz as “Newcomer of the Year”, in 2018 he was one of the ten “new key players” in the music magazine “Jazz thing”. He has released a total of eight albums and one EP since 2012, including “The Brooklyn Session” (2015), with Orlando Le Fleming on bass and Obed Calvaire on drums, the solo albums “Live at the Montreux Jazz Festival” (2017), “Contemporary Chamber Music” (2021) and “Live at Elbphilharmonie Hamburg” (2022), and the two trio releases “Samadhi” (2019) and “About:Blank” (2020) with Felix Henkelhausen on bass and Moritz Baumgärtner on drums. Since completing his studies, Lorenz Kellhuber has been a sought-after lecturer. He regularly gives workshops and master classes at home and abroad. For the winter semester of 2021, Kellhuber received an appointment as professor at the Carl Maria von Weber University of Music in Dresden. Together with friends from his youth, Lorenz Kellhuber founded the Regensburg Chamber Music Festival in 2020, which he continues to direct and curate.

Felix Henkelhausen, born in Oldenburg in 1995, received classical piano and cello lessons before his interest in the double bass was awakened. At the age of 16, he began studying at the HfK Bremen with Prof. Detlev Beier. In 2014, he followed this with studies at the Jazz Institute Berlin with Prof. Greg Cohen and Marc Muellbauer, which he successfully completed in 2019. Despite his young age, Henkelhausen has already played with nationally and internationally renowned artists such as Andrea Parkins, Dave Liebmann, Eric McPherson, Gebhard Ullmann, Hubert Nuss, Jim Black, Jochen Rückert, Kathrin Pechlof, Lotte Anker, Marc Copland, Nate Wooley, Oli Steidle, Pablo Held, Peter Schlamp, Philipp Gropper’s Philm, Toby Delius and many others. Henkelhausen is part of numerous bands including Liun and the Science Fiction Orchestra, Lorenz Kellhuber Trio, Stefan Schultze Large, Jim and the Shrimps, Bram de Looze Trio feat. Eric McPherson, Nate Wooley’s Knknighgh and Tau5. In February 2023, he was nominated for the German Jazz Award in the bass category.

Moritz Baumgärtner, born in Zurich in 1985, began playing classical drums at the age of nine in Basel and studied at the Jazz Institute Berlin from 2006 to 2010 with John Hollenbeck, Jim Black, Jeff Ballard and Joey Baron. With his very personal sound aesthetic, unique melodic playing and unconventional creative will, he has played his way into the international league within a very short time. “He has long since functioned not only as a rhythmic backbone, but […] as another sound-shaping instrumentalist. Unusual gongs or bicycle bells are as much a part of Baumgärtner’s tools as his personal style of accentuating or subverting rhythms.” (FAZ) For many, this drummer has been one of the most exciting in his field for years. Baumgärtner is a founding member of the Melt Trio (with Bernhard and Peter Meyer) and the Lisbeth Quartet, active since 2007. The latter received an ECHO Jazz in 2012 and 2018. Baumgärtner was awarded the 2023 German Jazz Prize for his contribution to the Melt Trio’s most recent album. He can be heard on over 60 international CD productions and has toured with Tony Malaby, Ralph Alessi, Chris Speed, Bob Stewart, Lucian Ban, Louis Sclavis, Julia Hülsmann, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Greg Cohen, Angelica Niescier, Theo Bleckmann and many others. His tours abroad have taken him to the USA, South America, Africa, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, China, Mexico, Guatemala, Russia, Ukraine, Haiti, Norway, Romania, Denmark, Sweden, England. Moritz Baumgärtner is also active as a lecturer and received the call as a professor at the Nuremberg University of Music in 2022.