Tim Sund (born March 4, 1971 in Hohenlimburg) is a German jazz musician (piano, composition).
Life and work
Sund received his first music lessons at the age of six; he began playing classical piano when he was eight years old. He then played in the Hagen rock band Tin Pan Alley. [2] At the age of 15, he discovered jazz. He took part in workshops with Joanne Brackeen, Walter Norris, Bob Degen, and Richie Beirach, and in 1988 he won first prize in the state competition Jugend jazzt. He began his studies at the Cologne University of Music and Dance before Beirach brought him to New York in 1993 for private study. After graduating from the Cologne University of Music in 1995, he went on to study for a master’s degree in classical composition at the Manhattan School of Music with Ludmila Ulehla.
At that time, he was already accompanying Ernie Watts and had recorded his debut album, About Time. This was soon followed by a second CD, the duo Borderlands with saxophonist Claudius Valk, which was produced by Beirach. In the mid-1990s, he composed his piano concerto Towards the Lotus Shrine and, together with Valk, played the world premiere of Ulehla’s Sonata for Improvisation. In New York, he founded his quintet with Joel Frahm, Gregor Hübner, bassist Mark P. Brown, and drummer Andreas Griefingholt, with whom he recorded the album In the Midst of Change in 1997.
Sund moved to Berlin in the fall of 1997 but continued to tour with this quintet, in which Carlos Bica took over on bass. Their second album, The Rains from a Cloud Do not Wet the Sky, was released in 2000. In 2002, he released the album Trialogue with his trio (with Martin Lillich and Michael Kersting). In the following years, he produced solo works. With Tom Christensen and Tomas Ulrich, he formed a quartet dedicated to Third Stream.
In order to incorporate rock influences and the use of electronics and keyboards, he founded his band The Mighties Ever in 2009 with Valentin Gregor, Christian Kappe, Guilherme Castro, and Kai Schoenburg, which recorded the album Now in 2011 and is still active today. He also accompanied Daniel Mattar and Erika Rojo (Das Lied, 1999).
Sund heads the keyboard department at the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf Music School in Berlin, where he teaches piano, theory, aural training, music history, and ensemble playing in the jazz preparatory course.
