Bio
Felix Schlarmann (Germany, 1982) started his career in the Netherlands in the late 2000's after receiving his master’s degree in jazz drums, studying at the Conservatory of Amsterdam and with John Riley at the Manhattan School of Music in New York City.
Growing up in a musical family in northern Germany’s countryside, Felix soon picked up the sticks. After a music driven youth playing the drums in rock and jazz bands next to being a passionate classical percussionist, he finally chose for jazz music. With the well appreciated album Counterlife he made his recording debut as a bandleader and composer on Challenge Records. Since more than ten years Felix is part of the known Dutch formation BRUUT!. The band tours all over the globe and lets him appear on international festivals like the North Sea Jazzfestival, the Tokyo Jazzfestival or London jazz, just to name a few. Next to that Felix Schlarmann is a founding member of several projects in the Netherlands, but also works as a sideman for numerous formations. His musical activities range from playing bigband to artistic impro projects.
Some current projects are the WonderYears trio with saxophonist Jasper Blom, a new collaboration with percussionist Modar Salama called Dialogues, an experimental project with German pianist and electronic music composer Roman Rofalski, Joan Reinders’ Millennium Jazz Orchestra, and a trio with American saxophonist Dick Oatts.
As an educator Felix Schlarmann is part of the jazz faculty at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague. Also, he is a member of the Amsterdam musicians collective Splendor.
For Dutch online radiostation the Concertzender he presents the radio program JazzNotJazz. His compositions for classical percussion are published by the German Gretel Verlag.
Being a driven organizer within the Amsterdam jazz scene, Schlarmann is the founder and musical director of the highly acclaimed Jazzfestival ‘Jazzfest Amsterdam’. He also runs his own monthly jazz series called ‘Jazz in /K’ at Amsterdam’s venue Studio /K.
During the years he had the chance to perform with great national and international artists like Dick Oatts, Peter Bernstein, Chris Cheek, Alex Sipiagin, Gilad Hekselman, Seamus Blake, Bert Joris, Cecil Bridgewater, Joel Frahm, Ben van Gelder, Dave Douglas, Jesse van Ruller, Benjamin Herman, Tineke Postma, Anton Goudsmit, Michael Moore, Jiggs Whigham, Deborah Brown, Luis Bonilla, Jay Anderson, Frederik Köster, Ack van Royen, Jasper van’t Hof, Harmen Fraanje, Sam Most, Marco Tamburini and many many more....