Echo Klassik and Hamburg Jazz award winner Wolf Kerschek is an internationally renowned composer, conductor and arranger. In addition to the who’s who of jazz (HR, WDR, NDR Big Band, Metropole Orkest and many more), his spectrum also includes classical music (Tokyo Symphony, Salzburg Camerata, Utah/Nashville Symphony and many more) and national and internationally renowned pop (from Helene Fischer to Rammstein & from Michael Bolton to Rick Springfield). He conducted and orchestrated the FIFA anthem that plays before every World Cup match, composed the official ARD songs for the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, the World Athletics Championships in London and the Women’s European Football Championships 2016, the draw for the 2018 World Cup, which he also conducted in the Kremlin, and was awarded the titles of world record conductor of the world’s largest orchestra (2016) and the world’s largest rock band (2019).

Since 2004, he has been head of the jazz program and professor of jazz composition and ensemble conducting at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg.

As a film composer and producer trained in the USA, he has a large network of studio musicians who specialize in large productions with orchestras and big bands.

Hendrika Entzian first studied double bass in Hamburg, then in Cologne. In addition to her involvement in various Cologne projects, she increasingly focused on composition and subsequently completed a master’s degree in jazz arrangement and composition at the HfMT Cologne.

She released two CDs with her quartet on Traumton Records: “Turnus” (2015) and “Pivot” (2017). “Pivot” was nominated for the ECHO Jazz award in 2018.

Hendrika regularly writes and arranges for large ensembles such as the WDR Big Band, the Dutch Metropol Orchestra and the Cologne Subway Jazz Orchestra and is one of two artistic directors of the Landesjugendjazzorchester Hamburg.

She founded her own jazz orchestra with Hendrika Entzian+, whose debut CD “Marble” was released by Traumton Records in April 2020. In 2021, this band was nominated for the German Jazz Award in the category “Large Ensemble of the Year”.

Hendrika Entzian is the winner of the WDR Jazz Award in the category Composition 2018. She is a guest professor in the MA Bigband, the cooperative study program of the hr-Bigband and the HfMDK Frankfurt.

Credit: Stefanie Marcus

The pianist and composer Clara Haberkamp lives in Hamburg.

From 1998 to 2006, she won the “Jugend jazzt” and “Jugend musiziert” competitions several times at state level. From 2006 to 2009 she was a member of the Landesjugendjazzorchester NRW. Tours with the big band have taken her to South East Asia, Malta, Israel and Estonia. From 2009 to 2013, she studied piano at the Jazz Institut Berlin, during which time she was a member of the Bundesjazzorchester. She completed her master’s degree in composition at the HfMT Hamburg in May 2017 with the CD recording of a program composed especially for the NDR Big Band. For 2021, she took over the artistic direction of the concert evening “Klassik meets Jazz” at the Konzerthaus Berlin as part of Young Euro Classic as a composer. The radio program “In Concert, Clara Haberkamp at Young Euro Classic” was nominated for the German Jazz Award 2022. With the “Newcomer Award” of the Jazz Baltica Festival, the Clara Haberkamp Trio realized its first release in 2011. With the album “Orange Blossom”, the trio was nominated for the Echo Jazz 2017 in the “Newcomer” category. The current trio album “Reframing the Moon” was invited for a showcase at jazzahead! 2022.

Clara Haberkamp has performed with her trio and as a soloist at numerous festivals and concerts, including Jazz Baltica, Jazzfest Bonn, BASF, NDR’s Rolf Liebermann Studio and arte concert.

She is an artist of the Agentur Wolkenstein and has been a Piano Yamaha Artist since 2022. Her current collective projects include the Candour Quartet with bassist Lisa Wulff and trumpeter Jakob Bänsch and the Duo Azadi with Iranian cellist Atena Eshtiaghi.

As a fellow of the Claussen Simon Stiftung, Clara Haberkamp has also completed an artistic-scientific doctorate at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg and recently successfully defended it.

Credit: Anne de Wolff

Geir Lysne is a Norwegian composer, conductor, musician and teacher.
Born in 1965, and educated from the ’Norwegian Academy of Music’ with jazz saxophone
and composition as main subjects. He is now professor at the same academy.
Lysne is international well known on the big band scene, and is the current chief conductor
of NDR radio jazz orchestra of Hamburg since 2016. Lysne has worked with numbers of
European ensembles and artists like Bobby McFerrin, Joe Lovano, Stefano Bollani, Mory
Kanté, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Soweto Kinch, Fatoumata Diawara, Billy Cobham, Marilyn Mazur,
Nils Landgren and Michael Wollny.
Lysne has released six albums on ACT with his own compositions and arrangements.
For this he has received ’German Critics Award’ in 2006 and 2013.
The Norwegian Wind Ensemble has hired Lysne as curator in their ‘real time music’ series
(2013-2024). With his unique methods in orchestra improvisation, he already has done
remarkable international success with this classical orchestra doing ‘free classic music’.

Agustín Pardo Motz is an Uruguayan musician, composer, arranger, and conductor. He currently resides in Germany, where he is pursuing a Doctorate (Dr. sc. mus.) at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater (HfMT) in Hamburg. Previously, he completed a Master’s in Jazz Composition at the same institution, thanks to a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). Additionally, he holds a Bachelor’s degree in Composition and a Bachelor’s degree in Orchestral Conducting from the University of the Republic (UdelaR) in Montevideo, Uruguay. He is also a graduate of the Escuela de Música Contemporánea (Berklee International Network) in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in Jazz Guitar, and has a specialization in Arrangements and Composition from the same institution.

As a composer, he is primarily dedicated to writing for large ensembles, such as Big Bands, Orchestras, and Symphonic Bands. His music seeks to establish a dialogue between South American musical traditions, jazz, contemporary academic music, and the symphonic tradition.

His compositions and arrangements have been performed in various parts of the world, including Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Norway, Argentina, and Uruguay, among other countries. Notable performances include the NDR BigBand, the Hamburger Jazz Kombinat, the Jazz Hall Large Ensemble, the HfMT BigBand, Det Nye Norske Storband from Oslo, the Sodre Symphony Orchestra, and various departmental bands from Uruguay.

As a conductor, he has led ensembles such as the NDR BigBand, the Jazz Hall Large Ensemble, the HfMT BigBand, the Large Ensemble of the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo, the European Jazz Workshop Large Ensemble, the UTEC Orchestra, the EUM BigBand, the Departmental Band of San José, and the Montevideo Symphonic Band, among others.

In 2022, he was awarded the Gerhard Trede Composition Prize in Hamburg for his work “Die Elbe de la Plata”. In 2020, he received the National Music Prize from the Ministry of Education and Culture (MEC) in the Tango category for his composition “Sol XIII”. In 2022, the piece “No Llueve” by La Imbailable Cumbia Orquesta, for which he wrote the arrangements, won the National Music Prize in the Tropical category.

As a multi-instrumentalist performer, he has participated in numerous international tours, standing out for his versatility in a wide range of instruments and musical styles. Throughout his career, he has also collaborated with various artists on recording productions as a session musician and producer.

As an educator, he is currently in charge of the Composition & Arrangements Area and the Research & Project Management Area at the Technological University (UTEC) in Mercedes, Uruguay. He also works in the Theory & Composition Department at the Faculty of Arts of the UdelaR in Montevideo. Previously, he has worked as a teacher at the International School of Contemporary Music at the National Pedro Henríquez Ureña University (UNPHU) in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, and at the Conservatorio Sur in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Gerhard Trede-Award 2022

In 2022, the Gerhard Trede Foundation offered a special prize for a new composition or arrangement based on of a Trede work. Students of the Dr. Langner Jazz Master at the University of Music and Theatre were eligible to apply. The final concert took place on 17 July in the Jazzhall. The Large Ensemble of the University played under the direction of Agustin Pardo. 

The nominees were the Vietnamese singer Mai Linh with the title My blue heaven, Lauri Kadalipp from Estonia with Fly to heaven, the Australian composer Samuel Penderbayne with Heimat, und Dahrling wann?; the composer and conductor Agustin Pardo from Uruguay with Die Elbe de la plata, Alex Demos with Au revoir and the French flutist and composer Clémence Manachère with Evolution.

f.l.t.r.: Mai Linh, Alex Demos, Clemence Manaquère, Lauri Kardalipp, Samuel Penderbayne, Agustin Pardo

The winner of the competition Agustin Pardo was awarded by the jury – Wolf Kerschek, Gordon Kampe, Reinhard Flender and Geir Lysn- for his new composition “Die Elbe de la plata” based on the work “Die Elbe” by Gerhard Trede.

The Award was presented by Trede Foundation board member Volker Korella.

You can listen to the Award winning composition “Die Elbe de la plata” from Agustin Pardo here:

You can listen to the nominated compositions “Heimat” and “Dahrling wann?” from Samuel Penderbayne here: