Stephan Stadtfeld Large Ensemble

Konzerthaus trumpeter Stephan Stadtfeld leads a fifteen-piece large ensemble - reduced big band plus string sextet - merging Berlin's jazz and classical scenes on the debut Caught in a Rug.

Stephan Stadtfeld is a classically trained trumpeter who plays in Berlin's Konzerthaus Orchestra, yet from an early age he has been fascinated by jazz, big band and funk. When he began writing his own music some years ago - studying jazz composition and arrangement as part of a master's degree - he found a way to blend his different stylistic backgrounds into something entirely new. The resulting highly personal sound language can be heard on the debut album "Caught in a Rug" by the newly founded Stephan Stadtfeld Large Ensemble. The fifteen-piece troupe is a kind of reduced big band - three trumpets, three trombones, piano, bass and drums - expanded by a string sextet, bringing together some of Berlin's most sought-after jazz musicians and their counterparts from the city's classical orchestral scene. The resulting sound crackles with energy and is by turns overwhelming, huge, introverted and fragile, with smaller formations emerging from the ensemble to create intimate moments and colours. Between through-composed passages, spaces open up for individual improvised solos that give the music added depth, and the principle of tonal and stylistic diversity - reflecting the wide range of experiences shaping Stadtfeld's music - makes it difficult to categorise.

Releases

Caught In A Rug

Stephan Stadtfeld Large Ensemble