Markus Stockhausen, who was born in 1957 in Cologne, is a trumpeter, improviser, and composer and is as much at home in jazz as he is in contemporary and classical music. He began studying piano at 6 and, starting in 1975, studied piano and trumpet at the Cologne University of Music. In 1981, one year before his concert exams, Stockhausen won the German Music Competition in the area of trumpet. Since then he has performed for renowned international musical festivals and orchestras as a soloist. For 25 years he collaborated intensively with his father, the composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, who wrote many works for him. Markus Stockhausen thus appeared on the stages of La Scala in Milan, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and Leipzig Opera in the major musical dramatic works from LICHT and other compositions by his father. At the same time he has performed as a member and director of various improvisational and jazz ensembles, including the Electric Treasures Quartet, the Trio Lichtblick, the group Eternal Voyage, and the duo Moving Sounds, which is made up of himself and his wife, clarinetist Tara Bouman. Together with his brother Simon, Markus Stockhausen has created such projects as KölnMusikFantasy, which was performed in the open air in front of 100,000 spectators on the Rhine, and he has written numerous scores for film and theater. Since 2007 he has focused largely on his own creative work. The summer of 2011 finds world premieres at the Holland Festival as well as the Lower Saxony Music Festival. Markus Stockhausen has recorded more than 60 CDs and is also active as a teacher, giving master classes in Europe and the United States. In 2005 he won the West German Radio Jazz Prize as best improviser.
August 2011