A.Brunn – V. Karparov – S.Rainer

Biography

VLADIMIR KARPAROV was born in Sofia in 1977 and graduated from French high school in 1995. He began playing the saxophone at the age of 13 and was soon performing with a Bulgarian wind orchestra. He first played jazz as a street musician in Sofia. During this time, he performed with big bands as well as smaller formations and also played rock, soul and ska.

From 1995 to `99, his musical home was the State Music Academy “Pantcho Vladigerov” in Sofia – Karparov chose jazz and popular music as his main subjects.
In 1999, he began studying jazz at the Hamburg Academy of Popular Music and successfully completed his studies at the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music in Berlin.
His participation in various festivals, numerous concerts and awards in Europe, India and Japan complete the picture of this versatile musician. He has played with Theodosii Spassov, Milcho Leviev, Ivo Papasov, Okay Temis, Yaldaz Ibrahimova, Jiggs Whigham, Martin Lubenov, Gerard Presencer and John Hollenbeck, among others.

SIMON RAINER was born on 29.11.1982 in Merano – Italy and grew up there. He developed a love of music at an early age.
He began playing the violin at the age of 8 and switched to the guitar two years later. Since the age of 14 he has been playing in bands of various styles including heavy metal, rock, blues and reggae. At the age of 16 he was already performing at international reggae festivals

From 2001 to 2004, he attended a 3-year course in jazz and popular music at the Tyrolean State Conservatory in Innsbruck. In the same year he enrolled at the Vienna Conservatory Private University to complete his Bachelor’s degree.
In 2007 he was nominated for the Berklee Award Group Prize in Orvieto in the
category E – Guitar on the occasion of the opening of the Umbria – Jazz
Jazz Festival 2007/2008.
From 2008 to 2010 he completed his Master’s degree at the
Jazz Department of the Music Academy of the City of Basel with Wolfgang Muthspiel. In addition to his studies, he attended summer workshops with international jazz greats such as Wolfgang Muthspiel, Peter Bernstein, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Mark Turner, Bobby McFerrin, Karl Ratzer, Aron Goldberg, Esperanza Spalding, Adam Nussbaum, Andy Middleton, Dino Govoni, Jim Kelly and many more.

ANDREAS BRUNN – born in Weimar in 1964, has played the clarinet since the age of six, began learning the guitar at the age of fourteen and has been a musician in bands of various styles ever since. Andreas Brunn studied guitar and music theory at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Weimar.

In 1999, his composition “Two Faces” was awarded first prize in the guitar composition competition Open Strings, which was organized by the German trade magazine AKUSTIKGitarre.

The guitarist has performed at various European and Asian festivals and has worked with Petri Hakala, Stoyan Yankoulov, Ateshan Husseinov, Uli Bartel, Mack Goldsbury, Ralf Siedhoff, Ferenc Snetberger, among others, and gives concerts with a solo program. Andreas Brunn took conga lessons with Topo Gioa and teaches percussion according to the Ta-Ke-Ti-Na method.
In 2003 he was a scholarship holder of the Senate Department for Science, Research and Culture, Berlin in Bulgaria and in 2008 also as a scholarship holder in Finland.
In the summer of 2004 and 2007, he was the artistic director of the EU-supported project “Young Music Caravan Europe”, which traveled 7,500 km with young musicians from Europe in both years and performed at renowned festivals in a number of countries.

Press

Our new CD was presented on the radio at RBB Kultur! Wonderful late night jazz program by Ulf Drechsel! You can listen to it here!

Christian Erber, NDR:

“DUOMEETING – a sound that can only be created in the cultural melting pot of a metropolis of millions like Berlin. Created by three virtuosos on their instruments, to whom cultural boundaries and musical pigeonholing are completely alien.

With New Urban World Melodic Grooves , Brunn, Karparov and Rainer take their audience on a special kind of musical journey of discovery. Their compositions, in which Balkan rhythms are mixed with funk, Latin and world sounds, testify to their extraordinary virtuosity and joy of playing. They never sound cumbersome or cerebral, but always fresh, lively and sparkling. Just as you would expect in a pulsating melting pot.”