piano
Claus Raible began his professional career as a pianist at the age of 16. By his early twenties, he had already performed internationally with legendary stars such as Art Farmer, Andy Bey and Mark Murphy.
After graduating from the University of Music and Performing Arts in Graz, Claus Raible first went to Vienna, then to New York, where he lived and worked as a freelance musician for several years. In New York, he also formed his sextet, which developed into an extremely successful concert formation.
At the same time, he consolidated his reputation as an accompanist and performed in many New York jazz clubs with greats such as Ben Dixon, Valery Ponomarev, Jimmy Lovelace, etc.
Since 1998, Claus Raible has chosen Munich as the center of his life, concentrating his artistic work in the form of intensive concert activities in Europe and the USA.
Raible appears mainly as the leader of his own formations, but also as a sought-after accompanist.
Since then, Raible has worked with Jimmy Cobb, Ira Coleman, Charles Davis, Jesse Davis, Herb Geller, Benny Golson, Dusko Goykovich, Dennis Irvin, Tom Kirkpatrick, Lewis Nash, Houston Person, Alvin Queen, Ack van Rooyen, Ed Thigpen, Charles Tolliver, etc., among others.
In addition to his career as a soloist and bandleader, Claus Raible has increasingly concentrated on composing and arranging in recent years.
He has worked on commissions for the orchestras of Brad Leali, Al Porcino, Jesse Davis, Dusko Goykovich, the US Navy Commodores, the Mongolian State Orchestra in Ulan Bator, the Big Band of the Croatian Radio, the Radio Television Big Band Belgrade, Serbia, etc.
Claus Raible currently leads his own trio and his own ten-piece orchestra.
»Wherever Claus Raible performs, the band members, other musicians in the audience, and last but not least the audience itself are amazed by his confidence in style, his fantasy of improvisation, and the stupendous virtuosity of his performance.« Claus Ragnault, (Süddeutsche Zeitung)
»I was immediately taken with Raible’s Bud Powell-influence, his choice of material and the way he interpreted it…« Ira Gitler, (A Dedication to the Ladies)
»The writer can’t racall having seen anything similar for the last six or eight years. (...) with the ability of going out and giving the maximum of supplement to one another: listening to each other and getting inspired…« Jürg Weibel, (Basler Zeitung)
© Foto: Jan Scheffner