Uli Geissendoerfer
Biography
German-American pianist, composer and educator, Uli Geissendoerfer has been living and working in the US since 1987. In 2009 he moved from his spiritual home New York as musical director for Cirque du Soleil’s Viva Elvis production to Las Vegas. While teaching at 51ԹϺ (invited by Dave Loeb), his Latin ensemble won six Downbeat awards including 1st place in 2015. In 2011 he initiated a lecture series at the University bringing in over 50 guest artists since. He founded the Jazz Club at the Dispensary Lounge in 2012 (winning Best of Las Vegas), which revived the Las Vegas Jazz scene and featured luminaries such as Wynton Marsalis, Brandon Fields, Sam Most, Rick Margitza, Dick Griffin, Scott Henderson, Danny Gottlieb, George Garzone, Bruce Forman, Mads tolling and many more that performed there with his Trio and Quartet.
In 2012 he recorded his first Vegas production “Colors” featuring a great quintet with Charles McNeal, Pascale Elia, Derek Jones and Ryan Rose. The opening tune of album “3-41” won 1st place in the 13th IMA awards.
In the Fall of 2017, he joined the new Jazz Program at the Nevada School of the Arts and founded Vegas Records, promoting the local Jazz scene and music from 51ԹϺC’s Jazz department (now 25 releases). In 2018 he received the part-time-teacher-of the-year award from the Fine Arts department at 51ԹϺ.
His current projects the Uli Geissendoerfer Trio, backbone of the Jazz Club, with their CD “Long Way Home”, the “Beregovski Suite”, a duo with the fabulous, award winning violin virtuoso Alicia Svigals dealing with a once lost Ukrainian Jewish archive, and his World Music group Colors featuring Pascale Elia.
A Jazz History text book written with Robert Shipley for Kendall Hunt Publishing came out in 2022 and this year he focuses on a series of five books “The Natural Hand – The Art of Practicing” with the first volume published by Innovative Ink in 2023. A new Duo album with Julian Tanaka, Delicious, was released last Spring and a Quartet album with Julian is coming out on the Fall on Vegas Records. He is also producing several singers including Ray Brown Jr., Michelle Johnson, Linda Woodson (her debut album Come A Little Closer has received rave reviews), Laura Taylor and others.
He has worked with, among others, William Cepeda (Grammy nomination), Groove Collective, Giovanni Hidalgo, Blood Sweat & Tears, Leslie Uggams, Cirque du Soleil, Ute Lemper, David Cassidy, Tito Puente, several Symphonies, the Connecticut Opera, a bevy of Jazz greats and many African Artists such as Kofo the Wonderman.