Uwe Steinmetz & Daniel Stickan
Biography Uwe Steinmetz & Daniel Stickan
Uwe Steinmetz
was born in Bremervörde, a town in northern Germany, in 1975. His musical influences came mainly from the teachers he studied and performed with during his school years in Berlin, Bern, Madras and Boston as a scholarship winner of the German Academic Scholarship Foundation: John Surman, John Ruocco, The Art Ensemble of Chicago, Bob Mintzer, Michael Brecker, David Liebman, George Russell, Jerry Bergonzi and Cecil McBee among many others. He has performed his own music on four continents and in more than thirty countries and has received national and international awards for his artistic work, including the a double price as a soloist and band leader at the European Jazz Competition in Spain in 2001. He has released 16 CDs with his own music and has appeared on numerous jazz CDs as a solist.
Mr. Steinmetz’s compositions include works for choir, organ and chamber ensembles, string quartet and jazz orchestra. Since 2002 he has worked with the London-based Fitzwilliam String Quartet, who premiered three of his works. In his compositional work he often deals with biblical or theological themes and has appeared on panels, in books and television documentaries about improvised music, church music and theology. His latest premiered works included commissions for a cantata for 3000 singers and Eric Ericsons Kammerkor from Stockholm and an oratorio based on Milton's Paradise lost. As an educator, he has been giving Master Classes in many countries and is currently an associate professor for Saxophone and Improvisation at the Conservatory of Rostock at the Baltic Sea. Since 2015 he holds a research position at the German Liturgical Institute at the University of Leipzig for contemporary music and protestant worship.
As a Christian he seeks to increase the awareness that music and other art forms can help people discover a deeper, healing and reconciling truth in an increasingly fragmented society and participates as an artist in projects that foster and encourage intercultural dialogue and support civil peace-building efforts.
