Eva Klesse, born in 1986, started playing drums at the age of eleven. She studied jazz at the colleges of music in Weimar, Paris and Leipzig, where she obtained a double diploma (artistic/pedagogical) with distinction. From 2014 to 2016 Eva completed a master’s degree at the jazz department of New York University supported by a scholarship of the German Academic Exchange Service.
Eva is working as a drummer and a composer in various musical projects, among others with Julia Hülsmann Octet, Sarah Chaksad Large Ensemble, Daniel Erdmann’s french-german project “Therapies de Couple”, Trillmann and her own quartet (with Evgeny Ring, Philip Frischkorn and Marc Muellbauer), furthermore she plays with – among others – musicians like Ethan Iverson, Marilyn Mazur, Wolfgang Muthspiel and Nils Landgren.
Several concert tours led her to China, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Switzerland, Turkey, Spain, Belgium, Serbia, the Dominican Republic, the United States, Argentina, Egypt and France.
During the las years Eva has been playing numerous concerts among others at Berlin, Leipzig, Münster, Frankfurt, Freiburg and Dortmund jazz festivals, at 12 Points festival, ChilEuropa Festival, Buenos Aires Jazz Festival, Cairo Jazz Festival and several live radio shows for major german radio stations. The debut album of the „Eva Klesse Quartett“ („Xenon“) was released in 2014 on enja Records and won the Jazz Echo 2015 (German Music Award) in the category „Newcomer of the year“. The second album „Obenland“ was released in 2016, the third one called “miniatures” in 2018, the fourth one called “creatures & states” in 2020. The quartet’s fifth album “songs against loneliness” (featured guest: Wolfgang Muthspiel) was released in October 2022.
In In 2013 Eva won the „Leipziger Jazznachwuchspreis der Marion-Ermer-Stiftung“ (Leipzig award for young jazz musicians), in 2017 Eva was awarded with the Westfalen-Jazz-Preis (Westphalia Jazz Award), in September 2019 with the JTI Trier Jazz Award.
In 2021 and 2023 Eva Klesse was nominated for the Deutscher Jazzpreis (German Jazz Award) in the category “Drums national” and received the SWR Jazz Award – the oldest jazz award in Germany.
In 2018 Eva was appointed as professor of jazz drumset at Hochschule für Musik, Theater and Medien Hannover.
A rising star on the German jazz scene.
London Jazz News
The fact that this student of medicine from NRW switched to music is indeed a stroke of luck for German jazz
Spiegel
Thanks to intriguing melodies and harmonies Eva Klesse’s quartet is appealing for different kinds of audiences and still far away from being mainstream. That takes quite a bit, doesn’t it?
FAZ
What drummer Eva Klesse and her band develop is mature, thoughtful music, played with great depth of feeling
Audio
Shooting star of the European jazz scene
NDR
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