Mélanie Germain is a qualified stage actress. She completed her three-year training in dance, singing and acting at the Stageschool Hamburg. During her training she received lessons from Karin Ploog, James Wood, Eva Märtson-Wilson and Ken Norris, among others. Professional engagements followed with the Elvis Presley revue "The Golden Memories of Elvis", with which she also appeared in various television productions ("Aktuelle Schaubude"). She also played the leading female role in the children's musical "Der Regenbogenfisch" and was the singer in the band "Voodoo Lounge" for many years. In addition to teaching at the TU Braunschweig and the Kreismusikschule Celle, she works as a freelance lecturer for rock and pop singing in Hamburg and at various workshops throughout Germany. As a studio singer, she has appeared on many different productions and made her debut in the charts in 2011 with the house project "DJ Stereodata". She can currently be seen and heard on stage with various big bands, her jazz trio "Terry Mono" and at engagements at the Winterhuder Fährhaus in Hamburg and the Wintergarten-Varieté in Berlin. As a singer, she feels at home in many genres and combines all these influences in free improvisation and circlesing, which is now also an important topic in her teaching and coaching.

Britta Rex is a singer, composer, arranger, improviser and works as a vocal coach and choir director. She studied German and music at the University of Hildesheim and graduated with the First State Examination. She also studied jazz singing at the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media with Romy Camerun, graduating in ME Music Education and KA Artistic Education. She found inspiration for her artistic work in workshops with Norma Winstone, Maria Joao, Rhiannon, Gabriele Hasler, Bob Stoloff, Roger Treece, Peter Eldridge and others. She is intensively involved with various concepts of popular singing such as Complete Vocal Technique, Estill Voice Training and attended further training courses at the Lichtenberg Institute for Applied Vocal Physiology and learned resonance teaching with Thomas Lange.

Britta has sung with big bands and small ensembles and has traveled with her music to South Africa, Russia, Hungary, Iceland and Norway. She has given concerts with the Landjugendjazzorchester Niedersachsen and the trumpeter Ack van Rooyen. She is the bandleader of the Britta Rex Quartet, which brings her own music to the stage, and a member of various ensembles such as the Hanover Voice Orchestra, the VoiceSistas trio and plays in a duo with guitarist Erwin Kühn.

She has been teaching at the HMTMH since 2002 and held a teaching position for improvisation and jazz singing at the Lübeck University of Music from 2011-2020. Since 2015 she has been organizing and leading the course "Entdeckungsreise Stimme" in Tuscany and Umbria, Italy.

In 2021, she released her third album "On Air On Water", which she recorded with her quartet plus string quartet. She received the Gema grant in 2021 for setting German poetry to music, and another artistic grant from the state of Lower Saxony enabled her to make studio recordings for the new project "Meeting Madame Pele" with her own compositions in 2022.

Bendix Amonat is a singer, songwriter, producer and vocal coach from Hanover. He graduated in 2011 with a degree in jazz/rock/pop singing from the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media. Since then, he has worked freelance in studio and live productions and as a vocal coach. His clients include BMG, Warner Chappell, Universal Music, Apple, Sennheiser, Hannover 96 and the Ehrlich Brothers, for whom he has been working as a producer since 2019. His music is featured in cinema and TV productions as well as on streaming platforms. As a vocal coach, he has been teaching jazz/rock/pop singing since 2004 and combines technique, interpretation and musical expressiveness.

Stephan Abel, born in 1964, first learned to play the guitar before studying saxophone with Roman Schwaller, Sal Nistico and Wolfgang Engstfeld, among others, at the Jazz School in Munich and the Cologne University of Music.
Early on, at the age of 19, he joined the band of trombonist and singer Gene "Mighty Flea" Conners, with whom he played regularly for over seven years and sporadically until his death in 2010. Later on, he also found himself in formations with much older, experienced US musicians/legends such as Lionel Hampton, Jimmy Woode, Benny Bailey and Dr. Lonnie Smith, who were happy to pass on their knowledge and experience to the youngster from Europe.
He also played as a permanent member of "Charly Antolini's International Jazz Power" while still a student.

But Stephan does not only feel at home in jazz. He has no fear of contact with other styles, especially soul and rhythm'n'blues, but also pop and rock music. He has also performed and toured with musicians such as Randy Crawford, The Temptations, Inga Rumpf, Angela Brown and Roger Cicero, in whose band he was a permanent member for over four years and is represented on almost all CDs.

"For a long time, I had great difficulty categorizing myself as a musician. If I was on the road exclusively with jazz musicians for a longer period of time, I often missed the earthiness and directness of soul and rhythm'n'blues, but if I was involved with this music for longer, I sometimes wished for the more subtle, more intimate means of expression of jazz. Today I am no longer interested in these distinctions. I don't have to choose between jazz and blues. I am simply a saxophonist and try to combine all the means of expression available to me. "More recently, Stephan Abel has realized this conception above all in various projects with his congenial partner Lutz Krause.
with his congenial partner Lutz Krajenski (Hammond, piano and arrangement), e.g. AFTER HOURS (CD: There I Go, feat. Roger Cicero) and SALT (CD: La Solution) and on the other hand with the Berlin pianist and composer Rolf Zielke (CD: Rolf Zielke - Handel Jazz) in whose various formations he also plays bass clarinet and flute.
With his latest, current project "The Windmills Of Your Mind", Stephan has realized a long-cherished dream: for his 50th birthday, he recorded an album exclusively with ballads. He invited some of his favorite musicians to a loft in Hamburg to record some of his all-time favorites in quiet seclusion for three days.

Anselm Simon studied at the Hanover University of Music (DML for jazz/rock/pop saxophone). The musical focus of his various band projects lies in the areas of jazz, blues, soul and cross-art forms of music. He has participated in numerous radio, CD, TV and theater productions.

He was honored by the Jazz-Podium Niedersachsen in 1992, 1994, 1996 and 1998. In 1995 he received the Jazz Prize of the City of Leipzig. In 2002 he won the Yamaha European Saxophone Contest. He has played as support for Charlie Mariano, Herbie Hancock, Michael Brecker and Pat Metheny.

His tours, partly organized by the Goethe Institute Germany, have taken him to Austria, Hungary, Sudan, Italy, Denmark, France, Spain, Poland, Russia and England.

Anselm Simon works as a lecturer at the music school and the academy of the Hamburg Conservatory. He also teaches at various regular workshops in Germany and is the organizer of the Hamburg Saxophone Workshop.

Nigel Moore - "The English Man". He has lived in Germany since 1987, where he works as a freelance musician.
In 1991 he graduated from Trinity College of London Performer. Since 1987 Nigel has played with "65 Cadillac", "Blue-Note", "Soulutions", "Fire Cats", "James Steiner-Band", "Fat Boogie Horns", "Pink Baxter" and countless more.

Nigel Moore is a musician who is always taking on new challenges. His performances range from natural trumpet
trumpet to big band, from pure baroque concerts to musical productions, from oratorio performances with historical instruments to new music.
instruments to new music.

Ken Dombrowski is a trombonist, composer, music teacher and bandleader.

He studied jazz trombone at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg with Dan Gottshall, lead trombonist of the NDR Bigband.

With his project SlideProjection he is active as a trombonist, composer and bandleader and presents his conceptual, multi-stylistic programs and compositions throughout Germany. His band Nordsnø Ensemble released their third album "ett omaka par" in 2024 in collaboration with the internationally renowned organist Kit Downes and is on an extensive tour with the program.

Ken Dombrowski teaches at the Staatliche Jugendmusikschule Hamburg as an instrumental teacher and big band leader. He also works for the Bigbandport Hamburg e.V. as musical director. He is a co-founder of the innovative concert series mycelium - rethinking jazz and is a board member of the Jazzbüro Hamburg e.V., where he promotes the interests of the jazz scene in Hamburg. He is currently also studying Systematic Musicology at the University of Hamburg.

He regularly helps out with the NDR Bigband and has already worked with artists such as Randy Brecker, Jeff Ballard, Billy Cobham, John Beasley, Kit Downes, the Jazzkombinat Hamburg, Scott Robinson, Tim Hagans, Nils Landgren and Wolfgang Schlüter. He also plays regularly as a sideman in various line-ups and is lead trombonist of the Birdland Bigband.

Although Ken Dombrowski is rooted in jazz, he also has extensive experience in classical, folk and popular music. In addition to the trombone, he plays euphonium, bass trombone and bass trumpet.

The Berlin pianist Claus-Dieter "CD" Bandorf (*1973) is known above all as a versatile and humorous vocal accompanist in the jazz/pop/gospel genre.

In his more than twenty years with the Grammy-winning vocal quartet NEW YORK VOICES (USA), he has played well over 200 concerts in Europe and Asia, including at the NORTH SEA JAZZ Festival (NL), the JAVA JAZZ Festival (IND), the SINGAPORE JAZZ Festival and the OSLO JAZZ Festival (NO) with Ivan Lins (BRA).

As pianist of the BERLIN JAZZ ORCHESTRA (D) under the direction of Jiggs Whigham (USA), he has already performed on stage with Manfred Krug, Pe Werner, Marc Marshall, Peter Kraus and Thomas Quasthoff.

Since 2016, he has accompanied the performances of cabaret artist CHIN MEYER on the piano and has composed the music for four programs to date (MACHT!GELD!SEXY?, LEBEN IM PLUS, CASHMAN, EROTIK DES GELDES). He was also musical director of the show A TRIBUTE TO JOHNNY CASH for the Wintergarten Varieté and pianist for the Silverster shows at the Berlin Renaissance Theater.

Claus-Dieter "CD" Bandorf taught for many years at the Berlin Academy of Music "Hanns-Eisler", the Berlin University of the Arts and the Jazz Institute Berlin (JIB). As a lecturer in the music production course at SRH University Berlin, he teaches pop and jazz-oriented piano as well as courses in band playing, ear training and project organization.

He also works regularly as a pianist and lecturer at the following workshops:
NEW YORK VOICES Vocal Jazz Camp, SING JAZZ Berlin, HELLAZZ Jazzworkshops, Bayerisches Landesjugendjazzorchester BAVARIAN FIRST HERD

Ralph König studied jazz at the Hanover University of Music. He has already worked as a lecturer at many different jazz and rock workshops.

Since the 1990s, Ralph has been present on many recordings and in many productions, including Randy Crawford - for the album Naked and true, Deutschland Phunk!!! (D-Phunk) - a collaboration with drummer Dirk Erchinger and keyboarder Jan Heie-Erchinger (Jazzkantine), Denise M'Baye, Chis De Burgh and Ronan Keating, Culture Clan - who won the Metro FM Music Award for Best R'n'B Album in 2004, The Bahama Soul Club with singer Pat Appleton and producer Oliver Beltz, Heinz Rudolf Kunze and YORK & Band - The Souljazz Experience. These include many compilation albums and he has already played guitar in numerous musical productions at the Landesbühne Hannover, the Gandersheim Cathedral Festival, the Theater für Niedersachsen and Hannover Concerts.

Victor Smolski (teaches Friday through Sunday)

Victor Smolski is a musician, producer, composer, lecturer and author of one of the most successful German guitar teaching DVDs, "School of Metal".

Numerous guitar magazines such as the Russian magazine "Classic Rock", the German "Guitar Magazin", the Japanese magazine "Burrn!" have often voted Victor into the top 20 of the best guitarists.

He is a jury member for numerous international music competitions and worldwide representative and co-developer for renowned companies in the music industry such as YAMAHA, ENGL, SHURE, CORDIAL, Thomastik-Infeld, KSE Music etc.

Already with his first bands "Inspector" and the progmetal band Mind Odyssey Victor toured all over Europe and started to establish himself as a composer and producer.

In 1999 Victor Smolski joined the German heavy metal institution RAGE as guitarist, producer and composer. Songs like "Down", "Soundchaser", "War of Worlds", "Straight to Hell" (served as soundtrack for the most successful German movie production "Der Schuh des Manitu"), "Carved in Stone", "Forever Dead", "Empty Hollow" and "Cleansed by Fire" were written by Victor.

As a composer, arranger and producer, Victor also ventures into larger projects, such as "LMO" with symphony orchestra and 4 singers, in which he successfully combines heavy metal and classical music. He also composed and produced all the songs on Nuclear Blast's 20th anniversary compilation CD.

In several solo albums ("Destiny", "The Heretic", "Majesty & Passion", "Guitar Force"), in which he also repeatedly collaborates with symphony orchestras, all his experiences with his other projects can be heard and further developed.

In 2020, Victor released an album with the death metal supergroup "Voodoo Gods", whose member list reads like the Metal Hall of Fame list.

This successful story is now continued with Smolski's current band ALMANAC, which expands the unique LMO sound with a powerful touch of heaviness. Melodic power metal combined with classical orchestra and modern sound make ALMANAC an absolute listening experience.

Oliver "O.Lee" Schmidt (teaches Thursday)

O.Lee is a guitarist, multi-instrumentalist and producer. He graduated from G.I.T. and is a former Marshall demonstrator for Germany with the Marshall History Band.
Currently O.Lee is guitarist and bassist for Die Schröders, Fee and Rauhbein.
He has been awarded gold and platinum for numerous top 10 chart placements.

Motto: "Jazz is curable".

He is the official inventor of the saying "Life is not a pony farm".

André Neygenfind is a versatile bassist from Wolfsburg who is at home on both the double bass and the electric bass. After studying classical double bass in Lübeck, he has established himself as a sought-after musician on international stages. As a member of the metal project Avantasia, he tours worldwide, but he has also been a guest bassist at renowned festivals such as the Leverkusener Jazztage and Jazz Baltica.
André is particularly versatile when it comes to jazz: from fusion to free, he brings his creative skills to a wide variety of musical contexts. As a live and studio bassist, he is a sought-after partner for musicians of all styles and has already played with artists such as Max Mutzke and Uli Beckerhoff.

Professor Frank Itt started his career as a self-taught bassist. Very early on, he came into contact with very good musicians through ˮhappy coincidencesˮ and was able to prove himself in successful and challenging projects. At the same time, teaching the instrument became a large part of his work. Since 1985, he has worked as a freelance band coach and lecturer at countless workshops. Since the Popakademie was founded in 2003, he has worked there as a lecturer for bass and band coaching. He has been running his own recording studio for a long time, where he can put his knowledge from his electrical engineering studies to good use. In the course of this, he has also worked as a producer for various artists.

His book ˮThumgamesˮ was published by AMA-Verlag.

He plays with, among others: The Touch, Jennifer Rush, Die Ärzte, Howard Carpendale, Al Bano & Romina Power, Pili Pili, Matthias Reim, Michael Sagmeister, Till Brönner, Grooveminister, Lotto King Karl, Jule Neigel.

The drummer Dieter "Zipper" Schmigelok studied jazz, rock and pop at the University of Music, Drama and Media in Hanover and at the Drummers Collective in New York City. From 1990-2005 he was a lecturer at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien and played tours in the Netherlands, Hungary, Iceland, France, etc. He lived and worked in South America (Chile) for 12 years, where he played tours in Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Peru and Bolivia.

In Europe and the USA, he has worked with Michel Petruciani (workshop band in N.Y.), Astrud Gilberto (Brazilian singer/"The Girl from Ipanema"), Bootsie Collins (bassist of the James Brown Band), Chris De Burgh, Lincoln Goines (bassist of the Mike Stern Band), Mario Bauza Orchestra (Latin Jazz Big Band) and Heinz Rudolf Kunze/Heiner Lürig, among others.

Dieter Schmigelok has lived in Hanover again since summer 2017.

Dirk Brand (teaches Thursday, Friday and Sunday)

As a stylistic all-rounder, Dirk Brand is a welcome guest at many international drum festivals and has worked for artists including for artists such as Marty Friedmann (Megadeath) Charlie Mariano, Deborah Watson, Geoff Downes and John Wetton (Asia), Gloria Gaynor, Meri Voskania, Jürgen Drews, Gitte Henning, Gregor Hilden, Carmen Nebel, Florian Silbereisen, Sascha Klaar, Gala and show band Nightflight, Thomas Blug, George Whitehorn (Procol Harum), Jerry Donahue (Helecasters), Al Copley (Blues Brothers), US blues legend Kai David, Bruno Nunes (Brazil), with the metal band Axxis he plays at the biggest metal festivals worldwide. such as Wacken Open Air (Germany), Big Gun (Russia), Metalfest Pilzen (CZ), Rock in Rio (Brazil). With the Belgian platinum dance seller "Milk Inc." he is at home at the biggest dance festivals. He has also worked with SEAL and Swedish pop act A-ha behind the drums for Milk Inc.

Since 2015, he has been touring the world with the German progressive rock band SUBSIGNAL, such as Prog Power USA or Prog Meeting in England!

With the exceptional keyboardist Delmar Brown (Miles Davis, Sting) he has played at world pop festivals worldwide. Tours with the Goethe Institute have taken him to Israel, France and Russia. He has also performed in musicals such as "Evita", "Linie" and "Hair".

Dirk Brand is also the author of the titles "1000 Faces of Drum Styles", "Future Drumming", "Chartreading" and "Pocket Rhythms for Drums" published by AMA Verlag and the DVD "A Band Concept".

As a product specialist for Roland V-Drums, he has traveled all over the world (China, India, Japan, Norway, Russia, Indonesia, Taiwan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore). He was also involved in the development of the V-Drums.

Since 2019 he has been working closely with PEARL in the acoustic and electronic sector and can also be found here worldwide!

He taught at the Westfälische Wilhelms Universität Münster until 2012 and has been the main subject leader of the state-approved drum course at the RP-Jam Berufsakademie für Musik in Gießen since 2009.

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Eddie Filipp (will take over the lessons on Saturday and play in the lecturers' concert)

The Braunschweig drummer Eddie Filipp is regarded as a musical chameleon behind the drums. With an impressive stylistic range, he moves confidently between rock, blues, soul, jazz and pop - and it is precisely this versatility that makes him a sought-after studio and live musician.

His powerful and nuanced groove can be heard on over 100 productions. He has played and toured with artists such as Andy Scott's Sweet, Alex Conti, Bahama Soul Club, Clem Clempson, Inga Rumpf, Lake, Hannes Wader, Marialy Pacheco, Chris Farlowe and Stoppok - a musical spectrum that ranges from rock to Latin, jazz and singer-songwriter.

In 2019, he followed in the footsteps of drumming legend Jon Hiseman and took his place in the British band JCM (Hiseman, Clempson, Clarke) on a tour of England. He has been touring regularly with the Hamburg Blues Band since 2021.

In addition to his work as a musician, Eddie Filipp has also been active as a producer for over two decades and runs his own studio, where he accompanies a wide variety of artists and projects.

His interest in the world of percussion was sparked in 1982. After a variety of self-taught experiences in various bands in the area around his home town of Freden/Leine, Hilko Schomerus ended up at the "Percussion Academia" in Hanover in 1987 under the direction of Freddie Santiago.
Several study visits took him to West Africa, Venezuela and Indonesia, among other places.
As a much-booked studio and live musician, Hilko has worked with the following artists, among others: Randy Crawford, Quincy Jones, DJ Bobo, Fury in the Slaughterhouse, Bootsie Collins, Fred Wesley, Phil Collins, Cultured Pearls, Roachford, Echt, Mousse T., Inga Rumpf, Roger Cicero, Max Mutzke, Guildo Horn, NDR Big Band and many more. .
When he is not on tour, in the recording studio or composing film music (including the soundtrack for "Mongol"), he teaches and works as a lecturer at various universities.