Zurich Jazz Orchestra featuring Thomas Gansch (tp)

Almost exactly ten years have passed since Thomas Gansch’s first appearance with the ZJO. Today he is a good friend of the band and a favorite of the ZJO audience. The basic concept of the evening therefore remains the same: musical fireworks, fun, unconventional, crazy. Gansch and the ZJO have already performed everything imaginable together: Gil Evans, Don Ellis, his own. On his current visit, the Austrian trumpeter will celebrate the music from his folk crossover album “Alpen & Glühen” with the ZJO. Ed Partyka will enrich Thomas Gansch’s original compositions inspired by folk music, which were originally performed by a chamber ensemble, with jazz sounds and rhythms and plenty of big band power.

Thomas Gansch was born in St Pölten in 1975 and grew up in Melk an der Donau, where he learned the trumpet from his father Johann Gansch. At the age of 15, he went to Vienna to study trumpet at the University of Music and Performing Arts. During his studies, he founded the group Mnozil Brass with fellow students. After six years of classical music, Gansch decided to finish his studies in 1997 and turned to his great love: jazz. He then played for several years in the legendary Vienna Art Orchestra, which he still describes today as his “true” student days.

In addition to countless collaborations with musicians from all over the world and performances in almost 50 countries, the Austrian trumpeter also composes for various other ensembles in addition to Mnozil Brass. He also teaches at the Jam Music Lab private university in Vienna’s Gasometer. Thomas Gansch is not only one of the most versatile trumpeters of his generation and an enormously versatile composer, but also an entertainer through and through, who always has a mischievous side to him, but never loses sight of the music.