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Chris Hinze

Chris Hinze was born in Hilversum, in the Netherlands. He began his musical studies on the piano at the age of 12. After working as a pianist all over Europe for several years, he returned to Holland and entered the Royal Conservatory in The Hague to study the flute. Around that time he met bass player Dick van der Capellen and together with Cees See/Martin van Duinhoven, they formed the 'Dick van der Capellen trio'. ('The Present is Past'). After getting his degree at the Royal Conservatory in 1969, Chris won a scholarship to the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston to study composition and arranging. Whilst at Berklee, he started to produce his unique Baroque/Jazz albums 'Telemann my Way', 'Vivat Vivaldi' etc. He also founded the 'Chris Hinze Combination'.

Symphonic works
At that time one of his great passions was composing major works: he was commissioned to compose a suite for the Holland Festival in 1972. The result was ‘Live Music Now’, for 42 musicians and string orchestra. Hinze received the Beethoven Award from the City of Bonn for this composition. His other symphonic works include ‘New York’ and ‘Parcival’. He also won the "Prix D’Italia" for composers with his production ‘Mangala’, which was the entry of the Dutch Radio and TV Industry in 1986. Between 1972 and 1982 he received 3 Edison awards (from the Dutch grammophone Industry).

Kings Of Reggae
He has performed with many well-known musicians, such as reggae legend Peter Tosh in Jamaica (where Hinze’s CD Kings of Reggae was recorded), the great producer Michael Gibbs in London, and The Brecker Brothers in the USA. He has played with fellow flautists James Moody, Paul Horn, Raghunath Seth, Herbie Mann and Don Burrows at major international festivals. Many of these performances were recorded.

Travels
In the early seventies Hinze also started to travel to far eastern countries like Indonesia, India and Japan. Studying ragas in Bombay (1974) with bansuri bamboo flute player Raghunath Seth and playing and improvising together with musicians from these cultures formed the foundation of Hinze’s pioneering style, which would now be called ‘world music’: for examples see the recordings made in 1974 in Tokyo with shakuhachi player Hozan Yamamoto: Kyorai, Keden and Mange (sadly no longer available). Later Hinze invited his teacher Raghunath Seth back to Europe for concert tours. They recorded many CD’s together, all available on the Keytone label.

Chris Hinze Combination
Apart from his ‘baroque-jazz’ and ‘world music’ Chris Hinze has yet more sides to his versatile musical personality: the funky jazz-rock ‘Chris Hinze Combination’ was presented internationally in 1971 at the Montreux Jazz Festival at Lake Geneva. In 1978 he also started duo tours with the celebrated German guitarist Sigi Schwab. These concerts were very successful, based on the concept of ‘total music’, which was completely new at the time.

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Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

The Chris Hinze...

Keytone Records
2008

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SPV / Keytone...

Unknown label
1997

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Telemann My Way -...

Unknown label
1997

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So Give Them Hope

Unknown label
1994

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African Dream

Unknown label
1991

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Seas Of Innocence

Unknown label
1988

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