BigBand of Deutsche Oper Berlin

Achim Rothe began playing the trumpet at the age of eight and was giving public concerts by the age of nine, both in classical music and with various jazz bands. At 16, he played in several classical orchestras, jazz bands, and theatre and musical productions in and around Karlsruhe. Around the same time, he also began composing and arranging.

In 1984, he joined the Jugendjazzorchester Baden-Württemberg, playing and composing for the ensemble until 1990. Also in 1984, he founded his own band and went on to win several first prizes at the Jugend jazzt Baden-Württemberg competition by 1990.

In 1992, he took the step into professional music and began studying at the Stuttgart University of Music. A scholarship from Berklee College of Music in Boston gave this career decision a major boost: from 1993, he spent three years studying trumpet, jazz composition, and film scoring at what was then the world's largest jazz college. Before graduating in August 1996 magna cum laude, he received the John Dankworth Award for outstanding achievements in jazz composition and the Clark Terry Award for his playing as a trumpeter. He was also named Most Active Performer.

Since returning to Germany in 1996, Achim Rothe has established himself throughout the country as a trumpeter, arranger, conductor, composer, and workshop leader. His work includes numerous performances across Europe, the United States, and Asia, many radio and television recordings, and more than 20 record releases.

After two years working with Cirque du Soleil and Pomp, Duck & Circumstance (1999–2001), his love of large ensembles increasingly came to the fore. From 2000 to 2002, he was musical director of the Berlin Bigband, for which he also composed; from 2001 to 2004, he directed the Compass-Bigband; and from 2002 to 2005, he led the Crocodile Princess Jazz Orchestra.

In numerous commissioned compositions, he has repeatedly shown that his horizons extend beyond big-band music. He moves confidently in crossover projects and knows how to bring different ensembles and musical genres together into a compelling musical experience.

Achim Rothe currently performs as a soloist and arranger with Andrej Hermlin's Swing Dance Orchestra and has taught trumpet for the Jugendjazzorchester Baden-Württemberg since 2000. He also directs the big band of the German-Scandinavian Youth Philharmonic and regularly serves on the jury of the Jugend jazzt Sachsen state competition. His passion for sharing music is evident in his workshops and in his work as a teacher and bandleader at the Pankow music school.

To date, Achim Rothe has recorded more than 20 records and CDs and contributed to several films as a composer, arranger, orchestrator, conductor, and trumpeter. In recent years, he has toured with predominantly international groups through countries including Egypt, Ethiopia, Belgium, Benin, Burundi, Germany, France, Ghana, Indonesia, Japan, Cameroon, Kenya, the Netherlands, Niger, Nigeria, Austria, Rwanda, Zambia, Switzerland, Slovakia, Spain, Sudan, Togo, Ukraine, the United States, the Central African Republic, and Zimbabwe.

He has worked with Giacomo Aula, Joanne Brackeen, Peter Bogdanovich, Oli Bott, Bobby Burgess, John Clayton, Sarah Connor, Hal Crook, Michael J. Fox, Klaus Graf, Dieter Hallervorden, Andrej Hermlin, Greg Hopkins, Tony Hurdle, Martin Keller, Dietrich Koch, Bernd Konrad, Erwin Lehn, Dan Levinson, Peter Maffay, Thierry Lafaye de Micheaux, Maike Mohr, Carlo Morena, the NDR-Bigband, Ed Partyka, Gregoire Peters, Bill Pierce, Herb Pomeroy, Ken Pullig, Antonio Sanchez, Steffen Schorn, John Schröder, Sydney "Guitar Crusher" Selby, Bobby Shew, Marvin "Smitty" Smith, Rudy Stevenson, Claus Stötter, Harvei Swartz, Ed Tomassi, Benny Waters, Finn Wiesner, Phil Wilson, Jiggs Whigham, Ron Williams, and many others.

Andreas Birnbaum had his first piano lessons at the age of six and won several prizes at the Steinway piano competition a few years later. He began playing percussion at 11 and later studied percussion and timpani at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK).

Alongside his regular contracts with orchestras and musical productions, Andreas Birnbaum made a name for himself as a percussionist and timpanist in countless classical concerts and recordings. He has worked with major orchestras and numerous chamber-music ensembles in Germany and Italy, including with Pierre Boulez, Hans Werner Henze, Krzysztof Penderecki, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Isang Yun. Drawing on his many years of musical-theatre experience, he is also regularly booked for a wide range of pop and rock productions and by many big-band ensembles for CD recordings and television appearances.

Dieter Velte was born in Biedenkopf in 1959 and studied clarinet at the Detmold University of Music with Prof. Albert, Prof. Michaels, and Prof. Klaus.

After engagements at the Staatstheater Darmstadt and the Hessischer Rundfunk Radio Symphony Orchestra, he joined the orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin in 1989, where he is principal bass clarinettist. He was appointed Kammermusiker there.

Dieter Velte has also been a member of the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra for several years.

Guntram Halder was born in Innsbruck, Austria, and received his first trombone lessons at the Landesmusikschule in Tyrol. He subsequently studied at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich. He gained his first orchestral experience with the youth orchestra “Junge Österreichische Philharmonie” and as a trainee with the Philharmonic Orchestra Augsburg and the Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne.

His first permanent appointment as principal trombonist took him to the Komische Oper Berlin in 1998. Since autumn 2002, he has held the same position in the orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin. He has performed as a guest with numerous renowned orchestras, including the Berlin, Vienna and Munich Philharmonic orchestras, the Staatskapelle Dresden and the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig. Concert tours have taken him to most European countries, the United States and Asia.

He teaches at the Berlin University of the Arts and at the Orchestra Academy of the Deutsche Oper Berlin. In summer 2017, he was appointed bass trumpeter in the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra.

He is a co-founder and lead trombonist of the BigBand der Deutschen Oper Berlin and also performs with various smaller jazz ensembles.

Karola Elßner was born and grew up in the area surrounding Berlin. After studying agricultural sciences at Humboldt University in Berlin, she studied saxophone and flute at the Hanns Eisler School of Music in Berlin.

Since then, her engagements have taken her to renowned German orchestras, including the Staatskapelle Berlin and the Berlin Philharmonic. She has also been a frequent guest with the RIAS Bigband Berlin. In chamber music, she performs in the duo Different Wood with cellist Dirk Beiße and in the trio Bauer, Vogt und Dame, whose programme “Music Along the Silk Road” attracted considerable attention.

From 2007 to 2010, she regularly visited Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh to teach saxophone masterclasses and learn to play the traditional Armenian instrument, the duduk. In 2010, she received the Echo Klassik award together with the LauttenCompagney Berlin for the CD “Timeless” (Sony).

Her concert appearances include Jazzfest Berlin, the Jazz Baltica festival and the BBC Proms at London's Royal Albert Hall. In 2023, she performed the Berlin premiere of Mikis Theodorakis's Concertino for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra with the Berliner Symphoniker.

In 2026, she performed concerts in Nova Scotia, Canada, toured with the Berliner Ensemble to venues including St. Pölten and Bad Kissingen, and appeared in Glastonbury, England.

Kenneth Berkel, born in Berlin in 1996, discovered his passion for playing the piano at the age of six. After classical training, he turned to jazz at just ten years old and transferred to Berlin's renowned Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach specialist music secondary school. He went on to study jazz piano at the Jazz Institute Berlin with Prof. Wolfgang Köhler and Tino Derado, with classical piano as a secondary subject under Prof. Susanne Grützmann and SooJin Anjou.

Today, Kenneth Berkel is active as a pianist and composer in numerous ensembles, including the Torsten Zwingenberger 4tet and the BigBand der Deutschen Oper Berlin. From a young age, he played in the regional youth jazz orchestras of Brandenburg, Hamburg and Berlin.

In spring 2022, he performed as the pianist in the musical “That's Life – The Frank Sinatra Story”. Since 2022, he has been a member of the orchestra of the Bad Hersfelder Festspiele. He has worked with artists including Katharine Mehrling, Gitte Hænning, Biréli Lagrène and Ilja Richter, and has performed for the President of Germany. He also regularly performs with New York singer Lauren Henderson and accompanies her on tours throughout Europe.

From 2018 to 2023, Kenneth Berkel held a scholarship from Yehudi Menuhin Live Music Now Berlin. As a pianist, he has contributed to several CD recordings, including “Just Jivin’” (Savoy Satellites, 2020), “One Endless Night” (Anna Margolina, 2023) and “A Celebration For The »Duke«” (Bigband & Orchestra Deutsche Oper Berlin, 2025). In May 2022, he released the debut album “Perfection” with his jazz quartet MTJQ on Mons Records.

www.kennethberkel.de

Konrad Schreiter (born in Meißen in 1982)

Konrad Schreiter began his musical career in the Jugendblasorchester Meißen e. V. and at the Kreismusikschule Meißen. He studied trumpet at the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy University of Music and Theatre in Leipzig, graduating in 2008. Since 2008, he has taught at the Musikschule Muldental and Neue Musik Leipzig. Since his student days, he has performed with various orchestras, big bands, and bands, including:

• BigBand der Deutschen Oper Berlin
• Bigband der Robert Schumann Philharmonie Chemnitz
• Spielvereinigung Sued/Contemporary Jazz Bigband
• SCHWARZKAFFEE
• Sin Fronteras
• Big Band des Staatsorchester Brandenburg F/O.

Konrad Schreiter has performed in theatre productions and musicals including:

• “West Side Story” (Oper Chemnitz)
• “City of Angels” (Musikalische Komödie Leipzig)
• “Romeo und Julia” (Nationaltheater Weimar)
• “La Cage” (Schauspiel Wechselbad Dresden)
• “3Groschenoper” (Theater Braunschweig)
• “The Blues Brothers” Unterwegs im Namen des Herrn (Luisenburg Festspiele)
• “Elisabeth” (LaBell)
• “Spamalot” die Ritter der Kokosnuss (Luisenburg Festspiele)
• “Funny Girl” (Oper Chemnitz)
• “Cabaret” (Luisenburg Festspiele)
• “Cats” (Luisenburg Festspiele)
• “West Side Story” (Oper Erfurt)
• “Hochzeit mit Hindernissen” (Oper Chemnitz)
• “Emil und die Detektive” (Oper Chemnitz)
• “Songs for Alice” (Westflügel Lindenfels, Leipzig)

After studying classical orchestral music, Manfred Honetschläger played trombone in symphony and opera orchestras as well as jazz groups and big bands, including Gerry Mulligan's European Jazz Orchestra. After several years with the opera and museum orchestra in Frankfurt am Main, he moved to the Hessischer Rundfunk Big Band. He continued his studies in composition and arranging with Bill Dobbins and Raiburn Wright at the Eastman School of Music, with Kenny Napper at the conservatory in Hilversum, and with Bob Brookmeyer and Jim McNeely at the Cologne University of Music on a GEMA scholarship.

He later taught in the jazz and popular music department at the Frankfurt University of Music. He has a longstanding working relationship with the Warsaw Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Filmorchester Babelsberg, where he works as a conductor, composer, and arranger on music and film productions.

Manfred Honetschläger has directed the Hessischer Rundfunk Big Band for individual crossover programmes (including projects with Bela B., Laith Al Deen, and Pe Werner) and at the Frankfurt Jazz Festival (with Aki Takase and Rudi Mahall), as well as the SWR Big Band at the opening of the Ruhr Piano Festival. He has composed chamber music, a jazz mass, radio-play music (including, in 2013, "The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window …"), a children's jazz programme for big band, theatre music, and classical crossover works involving the HR Symphony Orchestra, MDR Symphony Orchestra, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, and the orchestra and BigBand of the Deutsche Oper Berlin.

Martin Wagemann was born in Wipperfürth, North Rhine-Westphalia, in 1979 and studied trumpet at the Folkwang University in Essen with Prof. Uwe Köller.

He gained his first orchestral experience as a trainee with the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker and as principal trumpeter of the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra.

In 2003, he joined the Orchestra Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic and studied with Martin Kretzer.

Since September 2004, he has been principal trumpeter in the orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin; in September 2017, he also became a professor at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz.

Niko Zeidler is a German jazz saxophonist and composer who was born and raised in Berlin. In addition to the saxophone, he also plays flute and clarinet.

In 2019, he completed his saxophone studies at the Jazz Institute Berlin, where he studied with internationally renowned musicians Peter Weniger, Gregoire Peters, Greg Cohen and Andreas Schmidt.

Niko Zeidler has taken part in various competitions, including the MeerJazz Festival, the Biberacher Jazzpreis and the Sparda Jazz Award. In 2018, he received a scholarship from Yehudi Menuhin Live Music Now e. V. with the band The Kenniko Standards Duo.

From 2018 to 2019, he was a member of the Bundesjazzorchester (Germany's national youth jazz orchestra), touring extensively in the USA, Canada, England, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania and Montenegro. With the BuJazzO, he also performed concerts in collaboration with the WDR Big Band, Randy Brecker, Django Bates, Ansgar Striepens, Steffen Schorn, Nils Klein and Jiggs Whigham.

The saxophonist is equally at home in other genres and has worked with artists including Stewart Copeland. Wnbl and Make A Move are two of his bands, with which he performs throughout Germany at major festivals such as the Leverkusener Jazztage, as well as at the Elbphilharmonie.

He currently composes primarily for his own nu-jazz project “Nymmer” and also regularly performs as a guest musician with the Deutsche Oper Berlin.

Oliver Link was born in Mundelsheim, Württemberg, in 1966 and took his first musical steps on the clarinet and saxophone at the same time. He went to Freiburg to study classical music with Prof. Klöcker and won the principal clarinet position with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin in 1993.

His concert work is not confined to classical music. While still living in southern Germany, he played in bands of various styles. In Berlin, audiences can hear him as a classical musician in the city's major concert halls and regularly as a saxophonist in its well-known jazz clubs.

Peter Ludewig was born in 1972, comes from Grimmen in Western Pomerania, and has lived in Berlin since 1997. From 1997 to 2002, he studied jazz and popular music, with saxophone as his principal subject, at the Hanns Eisler School of Music with Gregoire Peters and Gebhard Ullmann.

Today he works as a freelance musician in various orchestras and bands.

Rüdiger Ruppert was born in Dahn in the Palatinate and has played drums and piano since the age of nine. He studied music at the Karlsruhe University of Music.

In 1993, he was a member of the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie. He is principal percussionist in the orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin and has taught with the Bundesjugendorchester and the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie. Guest engagements with orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic, the Deutsches Sinfonieorchester and the Elbphilharmonie Orchestra in Hamburg, as well as solo concerts, round out his classical career.

He has performed with several jazz groups and produced numerous CDs for the BigBand der Deutschen Oper Berlin and das wilde Jazzorchester. As a composer, he has published works for classical percussion and jazz bands.

Rüdiger Ruppert plays in numerous jazz groups and has been the drummer and a co-founder of the BigBand der Deutschen Oper Berlin since 2005. Since 2014, he has been the artistic curator of the Jazz & Lyrics series at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. As a drummer, he has performed with artists including Till Brönner, Richard Galliano, Bill Ramsey and Randy Brecker.

Sebastian Krol was born in Berlin and played in the orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin from 1978 to 2017. At 14, he skipped school to play in a "jazz mass". He studied in Stuttgart and Berlin, founded the first big band at the HdK there, and had to disband it after its first successful concert while he was a fellow of the Berlin Philharmonic's Karajan Academy, because it was deemed incompatible with the "philharmonic spirit". That was in 1975.

Once established in the opera orchestra, he spent ten years with the Berliner Blechbläser-Quintett, five years with the Brandenburg Quintett Berlin, and later played in the Brass Akademie Berlin. He recorded five CDs with these ensembles but never won the Jugend musiziert competition.

After 27 successful years in the opera orchestra, a dream came true: together with his wonderful colleagues Rüdiger Ruppert, Guntram Halder, and Thomas Richter, he founded what is now the BigBand der Deutschen Oper Berlin. That was in 2005.

Thomas Richter was born in Potsdam in 1965, grew up in the Havelland region, and began playing trombone at the age of ten. In 1981, he took part in the sixth Central Meeting of Young Talents—and mainly gained experience!

After studying in Weimar, he was engaged at Berlin's Metropol-Theater from 1986 to 1997. Following the bankruptcy of Kollo-GmbH and a short period as a freelance musician, he won a position in the orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, of which he has been a member since 2000.

Alongside his work in various chamber-music ensembles, he has always sought and found opportunities to play in big bands—something that is unlikely to stop any time soon.

Thomas Schleicher (deputy principal trumpeter) has been a member of the orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin since 2016.