Till Künkler, Trombone
Till Künkler grew up in the Ruhr region, where he started his musical activities in various bands, the local trombone choir, the Essen Youth Philharmonic, intensifying his musical activities during a student exchange year in South Africa in 2001, where he regularly performed with the Free State Symphony Orchestra, among others. After completing high school, he completed his civil service in Recife, Brazil, where he maintained musical activities. Following this experience, he studied in Cologne and at the International Ensemble Modern Academy at Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts prior to receiving a DAAD scholarship to the Manhattan School of Music in New York, where he received his Doctor of Musical Arts. Since 2009, he has performed with a broad variety of ensembles and bands. He is a member of the Ensemble Garage and the Omniversal Earkestra, has played with artists such as Dave Taylor & NY Trombone Consort, ICE, Roscoe Mitchell, Toshinori Kondo, Anthony Braxton, Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra, Klangforum Wien, Studio Dan, Hong Kong New Music Ensemble, Mette Rasmussen, Barry Guy, Salif Keita, Sory Bamba, Cheick Tidiane Seck, Aly Keita, and Le Mystère Jazz de Tombouctou. He has performed at festivals such as the Salzburg Festival, the Beijing Modern Music Festival, Ruhrtriennale, Moers Jazz Festival, South by Southwest, Jazz Festival Frankfurt, Jazzfest Berlin, Copenhagen Jazz Festival, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Berliner Festspiele, Bregenzer Festspiele, Festival sur le Niger, Nyege Nyege Festival in Uganda and on tours throughout the USA, Mali, Brazil, China and Europe.
On his tours, he enjoys busking on the streets around the world as well as in concert halls such as the Berlin Philharmonie, Konzerthaus Wien, Wigmore Hall, Lincoln Center, Sala São Paulo, Cité de la Musique in Paris and others. He was a soloist at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, at the Diaghilev Festival in Perm and performed as soloist with Mark Gould and the Manhattan School of Music Brass Ensemble in New York. Since 2014 he has been a regular guest with Ensemble Modern, becoming a member in Summer 2026.
In his solo project, he tries to convince the trombone to fall in love with analogue modular synthesizers, sequencers and pitch transposers. Bridging contemporary music, jazz, free improvisation and band projects of all kinds forms the base of his artistic work.