Ruben Giannotti is a German jazz musician.

Ruben Giannotti, born in 1989, attended the University of the Arts and the Academy of Music "Hanns Eisler" in Berlin until he received his master's degree in 2018. In composition his professors were Maria Baptist and Jörg Mainka, in electronics Eres Holz was his teacher. Theory he was able to study with professors Jürgen Ganzer and Hartmut Fladt. Private studies of the trumpet with Gerard Presencer followed.

The main focus of his musical activities is the trumpet. Initially as a member of the Berlin Youth Jazz Orchestra and various university big bands. Ruben was a founding member of the Maria Baptist Orchestra and this was the start of his professional involvement. In this context also belongs his participation in the Berlin Cool Jazz Project as lead trumpet player and soloist. Primarily active in the Berlin scene, he plays in the Composers Orchestra Berlin and other local big bands and beyond: Fine Arts Big Band, Omniversal Earkestrta and many more. Tours have taken him throughout the German-speaking countries.

During his music making he had the opportunity to work with the following outstanding musicians* as bandleader, conductor and soloist: Maria Baptist, David Beecroft, Greg Bowen, Michael Betzner-Brandt, Dan Collette, Pierre Dørge, Caro Emerald, Mats Holmquist, Julia Hülsmann, Niels Klein, Geoffroy de Masure, Norbert Nagel, Claus Reichstaller, Alexander v. Schlippenbach, Frank Strobel, Peter Tenner, Gebhard Ullmann, Peter Weniger and Jiggs Whigham.

As a composer, Ruben Giannotti works at the intersection of new music, jazz and popular music. Writing for these genres, he realizes numerous projects of his own: his ensemble oprheus III, all big band projects in which he also participates as an instrumentalist, the Sächsische Bläserphilharmonie, the Komische Oper Berlin. Currently, Ruben Giannotti is composing themes for solo piano as well as chamber music for various ensembles for the Belarusian pianist Elena Bregman - who lives in Germany. Furthermore, he writes arrangements and compositions for twelve-tets and big bands, which can be heard on his latest CD "fragment" - released by STOA Records.

Ruben Giannotti in the Maria Baptist Orchestra
It can be assumed that Ruben Giannotti was able to acquire a lot of musical experience in the sonorous big band of Berlin pianist Maria Baptist. The music that Ruben brings to sound in his own project seems different from the sound of MB Orchestra, but two features are very similar, cannot be ignored. These are the mature compositions and the refined arrangements. Both are found in these orchestras, both define contemporary big band sound.

Ruben Giannotti in the band of Anna Margolina
But Ruben not only blows the trumpet and flugelhorn, he also strikes the keys of the piano in an amazing way. His pianistic activities were (and hopefully will be again soon) well experienced in the concerts of vocalist Anna Margolina. An excerpt from the May 2019 concert review:
"The 1st surprise up front: at the piano takes a seat Ruben Giannotti, who not only indicates the intention to play, but does it. Surprise in that Ruben Giannotti is known to the author as an accomplished trumpet player who shapes the music of Maria Baptist's Berlin Big Band in the movement and enriches the sound with his excellent solos. Now this trumpeter sits at the piano and plays as a jazz pianist should in his "main profession": classically swinging, without fault, with empathy ... the beating heart of this concert comes from the piano of Ruben Giannotti, who - as the singer explains - wrote all the arrangements. The sound moves in the tension between a piano trio with vocal support and the quartet of a vocalist who uses the help of the piano. Both are present here, and both poles alternate - fairly fairly - in vocal and melodic delivery."

Ruben Giannotti - jazz orchestra
This top-class ensemble was launched in 2019 by Ruben Giannotti. At the center of which is the fragment suite for big band, in which the composer has intensively explored changes of perspective and the relationship between electronic and manual instrumental sound production. The result is an organic mishmash of "classical" big band topoi, beats, samples and generative automata - unfolding in each layer and not unambiguously confined to specific areas.

With its debut album, the ruben giannotti_ jazz orchestra presents the combination of jazz, groove and electronics from a fresh compositional angle: that of a beat producer. This special symbiosis of jazz tradition and electronic music, realized with an outstanding band formation, is placed by composer Ruben Giannotti in the modern big band world in order to bring it to the widest possible audience. Already in his previous projects Ruben Giannotti has turned to be a border crosser between the genres of electronic sounds, beat structures and the avant-garde and now brings his ideas together in a studio album that presents six original compositions and a graceful arrangement of Wayne Shorter'sAna Maria. At times, the color-loving impressionist is evident here, as inruine takes counterpoint to the limits of tonality. Elsewhere (serpent), elements of early and new music radically collide.Vaermeland, in turn, sets an intermediary pole of calm with his folkloric tone. The album contains the unpredictable and, without breaking with tradition, resonates with the listening habits of today - and possibly with those of tomorrow.

Ruben Giannotti explains:
Fragmentary are always the individual components of an aesthetic. This compilation in particular is just as fragmentary in relation to the selection from my Œvrefür Big Band.fragment is thus a set of four snapshots that show the handling of Big Band from my very personal point of view of many years of immersion in and devotion to this (these) special kind(s) of jazz. Subcutaneously underneath the whole selection made above lies the hopefully always clearly recognizable (musical) political issue that artful music is allowed to move and be fun, while possibly vice versa moving music that is fun should be just as artful in its facture.

List of works:
op. 1 Sleepin' Beecroft (Big Band), op. 2 Suite #1 für Quintett, op. 3 Phantasiestück für Klarinette und Pianoforte, op. 4 wind.raum (Ensemble und Elektronik), op. 5 ruine (Big Band), op. 6 vaermeland (Big Band), op. 7 Checkpoint Charlie (Big Band), op. 8 Neun Lieder ohne Worte über die Märchen von Oscar Wilde (Ensemble), op. 9 Antigone (Klarinette und Streichquartett), op. 10 Prometheus (Symphonisches Blasorchester), op. 11 Peter And His Wicked Gang (Big Band), op. 12 Fünf frühe Lieder (Ensemble), op. 13 fragment #3 (Big Band), op. 14 Tema con variazioni für sechs Bläser, op. 15 Der Künstler (Sprecherin und 10 Instrumente), op. 16 Deucalion und Pyrrha (Symphonisches Blasorchester), op. 17 Passacaglia ed extroduzione (4 Instrumente), op. 18 Drei Melodramen über Texte von Albert Giraud (Ensemble), op. 19 Waldspaziergang (Stimme und 5 Instrumente), op. 20 fragment #2 (Big Band), op. 21 La valle giovane (Orchester), op. 22 pravda 13.1-2 (Orchester), op. 23 jenissei (Twelvetett), op. 24 fragment #1 (Big Band)