Ralf Schmid is a pianist, arranger, composer, big band leader, and seeker of new sounds and techniques. He has performed internationally as a soloist and with his ensemble, Bossarenova Trio. He’s led the big bands of Copenhagen, Hamburg, Berlin, Stuttgart and Frankfurt and has collaborated with musicians of various genres including Whitney Houston, Daniel Hope, Herbie Hancock, Natalie Cole, and many more. His musical theater piece “A Distant Drum” was premiered at Carnegie Hall and in South Africa. Most recently, he has been performing shows that involve two grand pianos and two gloves equipped with digital sensors that allow him to create live effects using gestures in the air; in 2019 he used this setup to record his solo album Pyanook.
Ralf is a prolific YouTuber and Instagrammer, and during the lockdown of 2020, he began a live stream series of remote song collaborations with singer Paula Morelenbaum among others, and a series called ‘soil music,’ which draws attention to the current climate crisis.
This conversation took place on November 22nd, 2021.
We spoke to him about:
- Spontaneous music-making in the family as a child
- Reading the room
- Switching roles between ‘captains’ and followers in an ensemble
- Letting go of expectations to maintain artistic integrity
- When technical things go wrong
- Vulnerability as a performer
- Developing his show Pyanook with 2 grand pianos on stage
- Working with ensembles that improvise and use live electronics
- His new piano concerto
- Music as a mirror of our present reality
- Creativity as a means of activism
- Finding his message as a soloist
- Life as a musician in New York in the 1990s
- Striving for more equality and diversity in positions of power
Check out his recently released single Soil Music
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