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Benjamin Schaefer

Benjamin Schaefer (*1981) is a jazz pianist/ composer based in Hamburg, Germany. He studied jazz piano and composition at Cologne conservatory and is a former member of the German Youth Jazz Orchestra (BuJazzO). Concert tours have led him to 26 countries on four continents. He has played hundreds of club and festival shows, many of them with his own bands Benjamin Schaefer Trio (2004-14), Expressway Sketches (2008-21), Quiet Fire (2014-19), Hive Mind (2017-19), Stone Flowers (2020- ) and solo (2022- ). He leads his own concert series open.fundus (2019- ) in Hamburg.

His own projects are documented on twelve albums so far, released by renowned jazz labels, and have earned rave reviews both in Germany and abroad. Concerts have been recorded by all German public radio stations.

Benjamin Schaefer was a double winner at Concours du Jazz Europeen in Avignon 2007 (best composition & public award) as well as a grantee of the City of Cologne (2011) and Bayer Kultur's stART program (2010-2013). He received the prestigious Neuer Deutscher Kompositionspreis in 2019, as well as numerous other federal and private grants for album productions and compositional work.

Besides his work as a pianist/ composer, Benjamin Schaefer teaches jazz piano at Cologne conservatory since 2009, was a longtime board member of the German Jazz Musicians' Union (2013-22), leads his own record label for the records, and has set himself the goal of reaching personal climate neutrality by 2030.


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