Laurens Patzlaff · Piano and piano improvisation

After the release of his debut album, “Reflections on Debussy” in 2012, Laurens Patzlaff was dubbed “Master of the art of improvisation” by the Deutschlandfunk. His second solo album, “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”, was featured in Piano News 2015, describing: “Patzlaff renders himself a ‘magician’ and ‘master’, which, unlike an ‘apprentice,’ has mastered all tricks and knacks.”

From a young age, piano improvisation already began shaping the artistic creations of the pianist, who was born near Stuttgart/Germany in 1981. Alongside the classical piano repertoire, he still practised the almost forgotten art of stylistically bound improvisation as well as free, experimental improvisation and jazz. The piano – as an interdisciplinary instrument – is just as important to him as a broad, holistic view of music. Therefore, next to the educational musician, Robert Schumann, and the jazz pianist, Oscar Peterson, his role model has always been Leonard Bernstein, who rejected a distinction between serious and light music, pointing out that only the quality of the music was what mattered.