Drawing from Jazz, European music, Middle Eastern and Indian heritages, Berlin-based guitarist and composer Hub Hildenbrand reveals places that have so far been closed to the guitar, creating an expressive language of his own.
Hildenbrand studied jazz and improvisation at Music Conservatory in Rotterdam (NL) in 1995–1998 and was later awarded a full scholarship to Berklee College of Music (Boston/USA) in 1998–1999, where he studied under the American jazz guitarist Mick Goodrick, who was an influential mentor of guitarists Pat Metheny and Bill Frisell.
Through a chance encounter he discovered the Turkish music in cosmopolitan Berlin and learned from oud-master Nuri Karademirli the modes and subtleties of Turkish classical music.
His travels took him further to Calcutta (India), where he was able to lerarn the Indian Classical Music first hand from sarod-master Ranajit Sengupta.
Hildenbrand states: "My instrument is the guitar, although at times I often hated it. I found that I could more easily relate to the sounds of the Turkish oud, Indian sarod, Afghan rabab and Persian tar. I could lose myself completely in their sounds. To find my language on the guitar, I needed to go on extended journeys, until the guitar finally began to reward me and became a wonderful means to express myself."