Pianist and composer Samuel Gapp is committed to a wide range of musical, artistic and educational activities within a contemporary musical language. Being involved in multiple and ever-evolving formats, many of which explore the symbiotic qualities of free improvisation, Gapp’s work mainly explores the mediation of respective collaborative values – through the specific valorisation of and contact with diverse traditions, through the focus on sensitisation, expansion and diversification of target audiences, and through a playful approach to complex processes and interrelations. His works often move in between the intersections of improvisation, through-composed music, transdisciplinarity and performance.

As a pianist, he has collaborated internationally with numerous artists and has initiated and led several own ensembles. His compositional work includes commissions of original pieces and arrangements for orchestra, choir, ensemble and big band. As an educator, Gapp has initiated and participated in several sociocultural projects, including creative workshops, group improvisations and music teaching.

Having studied at Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln and Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa, he has been active mainly between Germany and Portugal, where his work has been awarded in recent years.

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Musicians he has worked with:
Peter Evans, Michael Formanek, John O’Gallagher, Michael Schiefel, Rodrigo Amado, João Lencastre, Nicholas McNair, among others.

Institutions he has worked with:
Orquestra Metropolitana de Lisboa, Orquestra Jazz de Matosinhos, Ensemble MPMP, Centro Cultural de Belém, Universidade Lusíada, Hot Clube de Portugal, Kathmandu Jazz Conservatory, Musiker ohne Grenzen (Guayaquil, Ecuador), among others.

Awards:
Prémio MUSA (2022, for ensemble)
Prémio de Composição Francisco de Lacerda (2022, for orchestra)
Prémio de Composição Bernardo Sassetti (2019, for Trio & String Quartet)
Prémio Jovens Músicos (2019)

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Photo by Vera Marmelo