Biography of Vincent Dombrowski
Vincent Dombrowski (*1994) grew up in northern Germany, where he started learning to play the saxophone at the age of twelve. After taking his first steps in a local symphonic brassband, he had private lessons with Hans-Malte Witte, Sebastian Gille & Prof. Martin Claassen.
In 2010, he joined the state youth jazz orchestra of Lower Saxony for six years until 2016. During this time, he got the chance to tour extensively through Germany, Russia and China and work with renowned musicians such as Niels Klein, Stefan Schultze, Nils Wogram and many more.
In 2013, Vincent Dombrowski started studying jazz saxophone and education at the IfM Osnabrück, taking lessons from Tineke Postma, Pablo Held, Frederik Köster, Anne Hartkamp, Thomas Rückert, Florian Weber and many more. During this time, he formed the band „Nordsnø Ensemble“, which has by now recorded three conceptual albums, won the ”Jazz Hoch Im Kurs”-Award and toured extensively for the last couple of years.
From 2015-2019, he studied a bachelor of jazz saxophone and flute at HfMT Hamburg taking lessons from Prof. Fiete Felsch, Gabriel Coburger, Vlatko Kučan, Prof. Wolf Kershek, Buggy Braune and Lucas Lindholm, successfully ending a Bachelor’s degree in music with the final grade of 1,16.
In 2016, Vincent Dombrowski joined the state youth jazz orchestra of Hamburg. With this band he toured to Switzerland and Italy.
In 2019, he joined the Jazzfederation co-hosting the ”Jazzkitchen Hamburg“ which has developed to be a pivotal series to support the local young jazz scene. He also started took up studies of Master of Jazz Composition with Prof. Wolf Kershek at HfMT Hamburg during which he founded the Vincent Dombrowski Bigband, which had its debut at Elbjazz Festival in 2022 (after being postponed for two years due to the pandemic).
Since 2019 Vincent Dombrowski has worked as a producer for the Hamburg Open Online University project ”microtonal saxophone“ creating interviews with some of the most influential saxophone players in this particular field. So far, he has worked with Hayden Chisholm, Philipp Gerschlauer, Asya Fateyeva & David Leon. Further interviews will be released soon – featuring Frank Gratkowski and Vlatko Kučan.
In Autumn 2019, he founded his Quintet ”Vincent Dombrowski’s flow regulator“ for his final bachelor recital at ”fatjazz Hamburg“ and finished his bachelor thesis: ”Between the Tones“ – Perspectives on Microtonal Possibilities for Jazz Harmony.
In 2020, Vincent Dombrowski and Michel Schroeder founded the ”Birdland Bigband“, which is a resident bigband for the renowned Jazzclub Birdland in Hamburg playing regularly every month. After the first two concerts in January and February 2020, the pandemic stopped us from playing with this band for a while but in summer 2021 we were able to restart the band on two occasions and play sold out concerts every month since November 2021.
In 2020 Vincent Dombrowski became a board member of the Jazz Federation Hamburg e.V. and co-produced the interdisciplinary concert series „mycelium – rethinking jazz.“ with Tilman Oberbeck, Cleo Steinberger, Milena Hoge and Ken Dombrowski, which was funded by Initiative Musik through NEUSTART KULTUR.
During the year 2020 Vincent Dombrowski and Yvonne Dombrowski composed & produced the music for the dance performance „Ungeheuer“ by Verena Steiner and have since performed the piece as performers at Kampnagel Hamburg, Wiese e.G., Kultursommer Wien 2021, Hart am Wind 2022 Oldenburg and many schools all over Hamburg.
Yvonne Dombrowski and he also worked on eleven five-minute compositions for the VR-Performance „AGENTS“ by Kotka Gudmon and a composition for the interactive installation „Agency“ which was premiered in summer 2021.
In November 2021 Vincent Dombrowski’s flow regulator was chosen to play at the Jazz Heroes series at JazzHall Hamburg feat. Christopher Dell. In November Vincent Dombrowski also got the opportunity to play with another of his personal heroes: Evans Parker. In December he played with the Jazzkombinat Hamburg feat. Kurt Rosenwinkel.
In March 2022 he conducted the Birdland Bigband playing the legendary „Black, Brown & Beige Suite“.
After composing new music for Nordsnø Ensemble feat. Kit Downes on church organ (feat. lyrics by Anna Berglund) in 2021&2022, this music was recorded by the ensemble in May 2022 at Philippus & Rimbert Kirche Hamburg. This project was funded by Musikfonds program „Stipendienartige Förderung für Ensembles“. In June the Nordsnø Ensemble was invited to play at the legendary Festival Jazzbaltica in Timmendorf Strand.
In September 2022 Vincent Dombrowski performed in the immersive VR-Performance „AGENTS“ playing the church organ and acting as an agent supporting the audience in their agent training.
In October 2022 he got the chance to work with the NDR Bigband for a week recording six original tunes he composed for Bigband during his masters. Furthermore he contributed one composition and recorded an EP for Yvonne Dombrowski’s Progrock-Band „lashless lid“ playing exclusively synthesizers.
As a Bandleader Vincent Dombrowski works with: Vincent Dombrowski’s flow regulator, Nordsnø Ensemble, Vincent Dombrowski Bigband, Officer Johnson’s Intergalaktisches Plantschbecken, Ensō & Birdland Bigband.
Already during his studies Vincent Dombrowski started regularly playing as a sideman with many different ensembles: Michel Schroeder Ensemble, Lashless lid, SPIIC Ensemble, YvoeRee, Ken Dombrowski’s Slideprojection, Hitch & Ich feat. Jens Wawrczek, Bentō, loos.extended & Patrick Huss’ Elemente.
Vincent Dombrowski was able to collaborate with many international artists such as: Evan Parker, NDR Bigband, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Christopher Dell, Kit Downes, Vlatko Kučan, Frederik Köster, Lars Duppler, Fred Frith, Michel Godard, Philipp Gerschlauer, Scott Robinson, Florian Weber, John Horndorp, Jens Wawrzcek, and many more…
