Marcus Schinkel Trio

For more than 20 years the Marcus Schinkel Trio has been playing in the unchanged line-up on stages and festivals in Germany, Europe, Russia, in the Caribbean and even for the German embassy in Vietnam.

Just 50 years after the release of “Play Bach“ by Jacques Loussier, Marrcus Schinkel continues the fusion of classical music and jazz with his program “Crossover Beethoven“ asking provocatively “Would Beethoven be a popular jazz musician of the present day?“

Marcus started playing classical piano at the age of 8 and was a fervant fan of Beethoven.

His sculpture was placed in front of a Deep Purple poster.Like Schroeder, the little “Peanuts“comic pianist, he devoured books and biographies of the ingenious eccentric.To this day the crossover-musician opnens all borders and goes beyond all bounds.

Marcus Schinkel, one of German's finest border between classic, jazz, electro and pop, is able to look back on his successful past:he played for Maestro Kurt Masur, with Paul Kuhn, Charlie

Mariano, Eric Vloeimans, Beethovenorchester Bonn and the Münchener Symphoniker, playing in stages and festivals in Germany, Europe, Russia, Caribbean and even for the german embassy in Vietnam.

As the centre piece of his many musical projekts Marcus Schinkel founded his trio with Wim de Vries(drums)-also well-known from "The Drumbassadors"- and Bas Rietmeijer(bass)in 1989 during his study at the Arnhem Music Concervatory in the Netherlands.

Wim de Vries is one of the most noted drummers in Europe and the half one of the drumduo “Drumbassadors“- who created a furore in the whole world and Bas Rietmeijer is an important figure in the Dutch music scene who also played with Eric Vloeimans, Jasper van't Hof and Eef Alberts.

Marcus Schinkel arranged Beethoven compositions on his CD “News From Beethoven“-published in 2004 like the well-known pieces moonshine-sonata“ and “For Elise“.

2009 followed the arrangement of the 9 themes from the 9 Beethoven symphonies for the International Beethoven Festival Bonn.

The CD “9 Symphonies“ published shows the harmonious blend and Crossover of Jazz Trio and classical string quartet.

In his new program “Crossover Beethoven“ Schinkel blends his style of compositions with Beethoven's melodies, thus catapulting the harmonies and rhythms into modern times between Jazz, Electro and Rock.The original music flashes to the surface every so often, thus building a commenting function, which serves as a base camp for jazzy excursions into a brave new world.

The German paper Jazzpodium writes:“jazz-linke reharmonized fragments of Beethoven themes with a lot of verve and knowhow(...), one of the few succesful adaptions of classical music into Jazz.“

Marcus Schinkel's most recent program "Crossover Beethoven" - asking provocantively" Would Beethoven be a popular jazz musician on this present day?" and is founded on the quote of the medieval author Thomas Morus:“the tradition is not meant to preserve the ashes, but to pass on the flame!"