Michael Gross

born in 1967 in Illingen/Saar in Southern Germany started at the age of 9 to play the trumpet in the local brass band. After winning a second price in the national music competition "Jugend Musiziert" he joined the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Saarland, then the German Youth Symphony Orchestra and the European Youth Symphony Orchestra. With his MICHAEL GROSS QUARTETT and the Saarlandian rockjazz band DREIKLANG he made his first steps in jazz and rock, with the brassband "NEUER MUSIKVEREIN ILLINGEN" he co-founded a musically serious alternative to the local brassbands, focussing in challenging classical programs and performing a lot of original Contemporary Music of also Saarland born composer Bernd Thewes. With him he founded and directed the contemporary music festival "ILLINGER BURGFEST FÜR NEUE MUSIK" (1987-97).

After a classical education as a trumpet player at the music conservatories of SaarbrüŸcken (with Manfred Endres) and Karlsruhe (with Reinhold Friedrich) he focussed on all kinds of contemporary music.
From 1989 he worked as a trumpet player closely with Frankfurt based ENSEMBLE MODERN. 1992/93 he was a member of MUSIKFABRIK NRW, 1994/95 of KLANGFORUM VIENNA. With these ensembles he recorded many CDs, toured throughout half of the world an worked among others with Karlheinz Stockhausen, Hans Werner Henze, György Ligeti, Maurizio Kagel, Hans Zender, Vinko Globokar, Heiner Goebbels, Frank Zappa.

End of 1995 he quit his job in Vienna to dedicate himself stronger to improvisation and composition as a freelancer in Berlin and to start over with his work in jazz and rock projects. 1996-2002 he taught trumpet at the jazz department of the "Hochschule der Künste", Berlin.
Already in his Vienna period he was interested in the works of Eastgerman composer Hanns Eisler, and that led to the project BRECHT EISLER ELEKTRISCH for the Schwetzingen Festival in 1998 (with Corinna Kirchhoff, Mark Scheibe und Cem Arnold Süzer) as well as to the recording of the Eisler-CD ODE AN DIE LANGEWEILE ("Ode to boredom") for the Berlin record label NoMansLand Records (also in 1998).
2001 he founded with pianist Mark Scheibe the record label ACAPULCO RECORDS, to be able to publish own and friends projects independantly.

From 1998 on he worked as composer and musical director in theatre productions. So he wrote the music for "OMICIDI ACROBATICI", a theatre dance project of the Compania Elettra de Salvo (1998) and developed with the saxophone player Theo Nabicht, the poet Frank Alkämper and the artist Anke Menck the literary-musical project "BLICKE ERKUNDUNGEN SCHNITTE" ("Views Explorations Cuts") about Rolf Dieter Brinkmann for the EXPO 2000 in Hannover.
2002 he recomposed Hanns Eislers music to "DIE MUTTER" ("The mother") by Brecht for the Berliner Ensemble in a production of Claus Peymann. On this purpose the "MutterOrchester" was founded, since then performing regularly. Following he composed, also for Peymann's Berliner Ensemble, music to the Brecht play "DIE HEILIGE JOHANNA DER SCHLACHTHÖFE" ("Saint Joan of the Stockyards") and "MANN IST MANN" ("Man Equals Man"), the latter in a production of Manfred Karge, with whom therewith a longtime cooperation started. In 2004 he wrote the music for Büchner's "WOYZECK" in a production of Christian Vilmar at Volkstheater Rostock, followed by music for Karge's play "PETERSBURG - EINE GOGOLIADE" for the Théatre de Carouge in Geneva (2005) and for Lorca's "DOÑA ROSITA" at the Théatre des Amandiers in Paris-Nanterre, a production of Matthias Langhoff.
Also in 2005 he wrote the chamber opera "ORLANDO FURIOSO" for 3 voices and 5 automatic instruments (a project of Roland Olbeter), that was premiered in Alicante and then several times performed in Barcelona.
2007 Michael Gross was given the musical direction of the WALLENSTEIN production by Peter Stein (with Klaus Maria Brandauer in the titlerole) at Berliner Ensemble.
Through the years he also composed some chamber music, among them "DREI BETRUNKENE WALZER" ("Three drunken Waltzes") for brass, piano music for the radio play "BLAUER HIMMEL" ("Blue Skies") (Radio Bremen 2004), the "STREICHQUARTETT (2009)" dedicated to Hanns Eisler and arrangements of children songs by Khatchaturyan for winds.

Since moving to Berlin he's also going on working as a trumpet player. Apart from playing with contemporary music ensembles he also performed as a soloist (creating works by Georg Friedrich Haas, Manos Tsangaris and others), play improvised music in various lineups (a.o. with Butch Morris' BERLIN SKYSCRAPER ORCHESTRA, with Elliot Sharp, Robyn Schulkowski, Joey Baron, Leonid Soybelman) and started in 2003 a still lasting cooperation with italian poet Lello Voce, played with Christian Wolff's ensemble for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and toured with the Bremen based band "SWIM TWO BIRDS", also recording 3 CDs with them. Also with the MutterOrchester, that he's directing and for which he's composing all the music, he's playing the trumpet, amongst others at open air concerts at Berliner Ensemble (2003 and 2004), at the BRECHT GALA at the same place (2006, with Katharina Thalbach, Milva and the Kessler twins), for the opening of STEYRISCHER HERBST in Graz/ Austria and in the project "FÜR BRECHT" ("For Brecht"), dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the poets death (with Anja Krabbe and David Bennent as guest soloists).

In 2007 started a several years lasting cooperation with the Armenian orchestra and choir KOHAR, where he worked as masterclass director and from 2009 on also as rehearsal director. For this project he moved partly to Yerevan/ Armenia. Tours with KOHAR in the function of a sound director lead him to Northern America (also to famous Carnegie Hall, New York) and Syriah (Damascus and Aleppo).
In Armenia he also composed for the Folk-Jazz-Rock Crossover project KOHARAPAYL, followed by performances in Yerevan and at the Beirut Jazz Festival. The CD "ARMENO JAZZ" was published in early 2012.

Also in 2012 Gross composed, as a commission of german/french cultural TV ARTE, the music to the silent movie "MUTTER KRAUSENS FAHRT INS GLÜCK" ("Mother Krausens Journey into Happyness") by Piel Jutzi, that has been created by the MutterOrchester in april 2012 at Berliner Volksbühne. The recording will be broadcasted by ARTE in november 2012, a DVD publishing by Filmmuseum München is planned.