Rebecca Trescher was born in Tübingen in 1986. She lives and works as a freelance composer, clarinetist, and bandleader in Nuremberg and Berlin. Driven by boundless curiosity and the joy of experimenting with both jazz and symphonic contemporary music, she has acquired an outstanding reputation in the German and international jazz scene. Her compositional ideas are closely related to nature: her music is both grounded and ethereal. Her role models include musicians as varied as Björk, Bob Brookmeyer, Miles Davis, Gil Evans, Radiohead, Maurice Ravel, Wayne Shorter, Igor Stravinsky, and Questlove. In her compositions, Trescher creates a unique sound world that is associative and organic rather than provocative. Critics and audiences alike have been fascinated by her ability to use only a few notes to transform a serene musical atmosphere into poetic arcs of tension at a symphonic scale.

Rebecca Trescher is a frequent guest at prominent festivals. Her concerts are regularly recorded and streamed by the Bavarian Radio and Arte. On international concert stages, she performs most frequently with the Rebecca Trescher Tentet and the Rebecca Trescher Quartet, but also as a soloist and as a duo with the Greek guitarist Giorgos Tabakis. She has received numerous prizes and scholarships, including the German Jazz Prize for “Composition of the Year 2022”. In that same year, she won DownBeat magazine’s international critics’ poll as “Rising Star Clarinet”. 

About 'Character Pieces'

At high altitudes, it’s comforting when a melody inspires trust. Wild dreams begin peacefully. Cloud travelers move forward with uneven meters. But what would a night without harp be like? Layer by layer, new and constantly changing vistas open. In the riverbed, wild frothing waters run deep. And what is the mustard maker doing? 

 In the character pieces that Rebecca Trescher composed for her Tentet, there is much to hear, to experience, to think about. Subtly orchestrated symphonic sound colors merge into one another. Arcs of tension stretch to the horizon, full of intensifications, changes of direction, and rhythmic transformations. All of this is interspersed with spaces for improvisation as well as seamless transitions between combo passages and multi-voiced activity – always with great clarity. Rebecca Trescher plays the clarinet and loves melodies. Melodies are not linear. In the contexts where she employs them, they have a shimmering ambiguity. Trescher’s Tentet is an experienced team. Every member contributed an idea to this project. The bandleader used these ideas to make something of her own and returned them to the group, where the material fell on fertile soil – the result of the group’s years of working together.  

When the players improvise, they are not necessarily playing jazz. Every member of the group is able to take on a constantly shifting array of roles, languages, and personal characteristics. Each player contributes their own version of the developing collective narrative, and all of these paths point in the same direction. 

In Rebecca Trescher’s music, things are never as one might expect. No trusted formulas, no predictable changes, no hastily constructed comfort zone. It’s more complex. Always. A number of people, musical approaches, ideas, and dynamic or rhythmic proclivities are consistently involved, often simultaneously. And everything is significant. 

Band:

Rebecca Trescher – Clarinet, Bass Clarinet, Composition, Arrangement, Conception

Julian Hesse – Trumpet, Flugelhorn

Joachim Lenhardt – Tenor Saxophone, Flute

Markus Harm – Alto Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone, Clarinet

Anton Mangold – Concert Harp, Alto Saxophone, Flute

Juri Kannheiser – Cello

Andreas Feith – Piano

Roland Neffe – Vibraphone

Christian Diener – Double Bass

Silvio Morger – Drums

More information about Rebecca Trescher Tentet: www.rebeccatrescher.com