Andreas Schaerer & Kalle Kalima
Biography Andreas Schaerer & Kalle Kalima
Andreas Schaerer
was born in Switzerland in 1976. He spent his childhood in the Valais region of the Alps mingling with the sheep, later moving to Bern and the picturesque region of the Emmental. He left to complete the acclaimed teacher-training course at Hofwil.
Schaerer’s musical career began when he was young, using early tape decks to produce compositions such as, ’Duo for Sewing Machine and Harmonica’, before gaining his first stage experience as a teenage guitarist for the renowned punk band of the time, Hector Lives.
In 2000, after two extended trips to South and Central America, Schaerer attended the University of Arts in Bern. For six years he studied singing with Sandy Patton and Denise Bregnard, improvisation with Andy Scherrer and composition with Klaus König, Christian Henking and Frank Sikora.
After graduating he began performing professionally and founded the Bern Jazz Workshop (Jazzwerkstatt Bern) in 2007 with Marc Stucki and Benedikt Reising. This ongoing collective acts as a communication point and promotes artistic exchange.
As a vocalist Schaerer explores a wide range of techniques including raw sprechgesang (an expressionist style between singing and speaking), sound imitation, beat-boxing and scatting right through to operatic coloratura. Today he performs with his own projects: the sextet, Hildegard Learns to Fly (Hildegard Lernt Fliegen) and duos with bassist Bänz Oester, and drummer, Lucas Niggli. He’s part of the quartett “Out Of Land” with Emile Parisien, Vincent Peirani and Michael Wollny and works with the band “A Novel Of Anomaly” together with Kalle Kalima, Luciano Biondini and Lucas Niggli.
Schaerer also collaborates with the classical saxophone quartet ARTE and is in a trio with the Viennese musicians Martin Eberle and Peter Rom, as well as playing with The Beet. In 2015 his first symphonic piece “the Big Wig” was premiered at the LUCERNE FESTIVAL.
Schaerer is a sought-after studio musician and composer, working in diverse genres from jazz and freestyle music through to hip-hop and soundtracks. His concerts and tours take him across Europe, Russia, China, Japan, Egypt, Libanon, Southcorea, Mexico, Canada, Argentine and South Africa.
In 2008, Hildegard Learns to Fly won the prestigious Jazz ZKB prize and became one of the priority jazz acts for the Swiss Arts Council, Pro Helvetia. In 2014 they won the BMW World-Jazz Award aswell as the BMW-audience prize. In 2015 Andreas Schaerer was awarded the title of International Vocalist of the Year at the 2015 ECHO Jazz Awards (in the year immediately following Gregory Porter). In 2016 he receives the Music-price of the district of Berne. 2018 he’s awarded with two ECHO Jazz Awards as “Ensemble International” of the year aswell as “Large Ensemble”
In 2009/10 Schaerer was invited by Bobby McFerrin to contribute to the improvised, wordless opera, ‘Bobble’. As well as performing with Bobby McFerrin, Schaerer has performed with Soweto Kinch, Bänz Oester, Luciano Biondini, Lucas Niggli, Kalle Kalima, Emile Parisien, Vincent Peirani, Michael Wollny, Anton Goudsmit, Barry Guy, Mars Williams, Peter Rom, Martin Eberle, Lucerne Festival Academy, Christy Doran’s New Bag, The Ploctones, Kaspar Ewald’s Exorbitantes Kabinett, Colin Vallon, Elina Duni amongst others.
Since 2010 Schaerer has taught vocal jazz, improvisation and ensemble-playing as part of a lectureship at the University of Arts in Bern.
Kalle Kalima
(b. 1973 in Helsinki, Finland) has worked with trompeters Tomasz Stanko and Leo Wadada Smith, sax players Juhani Aaltonen, Anthony Braxton, bass players Greg Cohen and Sirone, guitarist Marc Ducret, composers Michael Wertmüller and Simon Stockhausen, pianists Jason Moran and Hans Lüdemann, drummers Jim Black and Tony Allen and singers Andreas Schaerer, Linda Sharrock as well as with Ensemble Resonanz and Jazzanova Djs.
2000-2019 have been busy years for Kalima, touring mostly in Europe but also in Africa, Asia and Americas. Kalima´s latest album “Flying like Eagles” with Knut Reiersrud on guitar, Jim Black on drums and Phil Donkin on bass was released in August 2019 and the record release concert was in the Philharmony of Berlin. Kalima´s Trio “Long Winding Road” with bass player Greg Cohen (Tom Waits, Ornette Coleman) and Max Andrzejewski was touring in 2016 with the “High Noon” album (ACT). The group Klima Kalima with Oliver Steidle and Oliver Potratz won ”Neuer Deutscher Jazzpreis” in 2008 and has released four albums. Kalima is also leading K-18, a Finnish group with quarter-tone accordion that won Jazz-Emma in Finland in 2013. With his solo program “Pentasonic” he plays guitar through electronics into 5 amps surrounding the audience. He is a member of the group “Kuu” with Christian Lillinger, Jelena Kuljic and Frank Möbus which claimed positive resonance with their second album “Lampedusa Lullaby”. He has a trio “Tenors of Kalma” with Jimi Tenor, Finnish underground pop star. Their first album “Electric Willow” was released in early 2015 and brought Kalima “Echo –Jazz” Prize nomination in 2016. Kalima is member of “A Novel of Anomaly”, group of Swiss virtuoso singer Andreas Schaerer. Kalima is a professor of jazz guitar at the university of Lucerne since 2017.
