Jürgen Friedrich pianist & composer
Jürgen Friedrich works as pianist and composer in a variety of settings. The Jürgen Friedrich Large Ensemble has recorded the album Semi Song featuring Sebastian Gille, Pablo Held, Leo Huhn, Uli Kempendorff, Steffen Schorn, Bastian Stein, Nils Wogram and others.
Another extended large ensemble work is Monosuite for string orchestra and improvisers featuring Hayden Chisholm, Achim Kaufmann, John Hébert and John Hollenbeck.
Small group projects include Nano Brothers with Johannes Ludwig, album Echtzeit; Reboot with David Helm and Fabian Arends, album Reboot and Nautilus with Hayden Chisholm, Robert Lucaciu and Philipp Scholz, album Infrablue.
The piano trio with John Hébert and Tony Moreno released several recordings, for example Resistance and Pollock.
His debut album is Summerflood, a quintet recording with Kenny Wheeler.
He is also pianist of the Cologne Contemporary Jazz Orchestra.
Jürgen Friedrich has received the Gil Evans Award for Jazz Composition, the Jazz and Improvised Music Award from the City of Cologne, the Composition Award of the New German Jazz Award and the WDR Jazz Prize for Improvisation.
He has studied piano and composition with John Taylor, Joachim Ullrich and Bill Dobbins at the University of Music and Dance Cologne.
Today he teaches piano at Hochschule für Musik Köln and composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts Mannheim which offers a master program for composition & arrangement.