Lorenz Kellhuber

„Hardly anyone is likely to walk between jazz and ‚classical piano music‘ in such a spectacularly oscillating way as the pianist Lorenz Kellhuber. Whether improvising over ostinati in changing positions or between free tonality and bound harmonic sound anchors, Lorenz Kellhuber creates an intimate, concentrated situation between himself, the piano, the room and his audience,“ writes the Neue Musikzeitung about his current solo album „Live at Elbphilharmonie Hamburg“.
Born in Munich in 1990 as the son of two church musicians, Lorenz Kellhuber began classical piano training with Brigitte Schmid at the HfKM Regensburg at the age of five. At the age of eleven he got accepted as a junior student and as a member of the Bavarian pre college class he also studied violin and chamber music with Prof. Conrad von der Goltz. Later he received piano lessons from Prof. Franz Massinger, a student of Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli. Shortly thereafter, he was discovered by Rob Bargad (Nat Adderley Quintet) who introduced him extensively to Jazz. At the age of only 16, Kellhuber passed the highly gifted exam and became a student at the Jazz Institute in Berlin, where Hubert Nuss and Kurt Rosenwinkel where among his teachers. During his frequent stays in New York, he also received lessons from Fred Hersch and Sophia Rosoff, and graduated in 2010 as one of the world’s youngest Bachelor graduates. Since then, his concerts have taken him throughout Europe, to the USA and to South America. He has played on international stages such as the Berlin Philharmonie, Isarphilharmonie Munich, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Montreux Jazz Festival, Basel Jazz Festival, Alto Adige Jazz Festival, Getxo Jazz Festival, Bohemia Jazz Festival, Mar del Plata Jazz Festival, Jazzwoche Burghausen. Concerts as sideman and co-leader he played alongside Ack van Rooyen, Charles Lloyd, Orlando Le Fleming, Obed Calvaire, Bob Mintzer, Seamus Blake, Ed Partyka, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Joe Sanders, Jesse Simpson, Wanja Slavin, Felix Henkelhausen, Moritz Baumgärtner, Phil Donkin, Rich Perry, Charles Altura and many others.

In 2014, he became the first German musician to receive the first place from Monty Alexander in the renowned Montreux Jazz Piano Solo Competition. He has released a total of nine albums and one EP since 2012, including „The Brooklyn Session“ (2015), with Orlando Le Fleming on bass and Obed Calvaire on drums, the solo albums „Live at the Montreux Jazz Festival“ (2017), „Contemporary Chamber Music“ (2021) and „Live at Elbphilharmonie Hamburg“ (2022), and the two trio releases „Samadhi“ (2019) and „About:Blank“ (2020) with Felix Henkelhausen on bass and Moritz Baumgärtner on drums. Their third album „Low Intervention“ was released at the end of 2023.