Carlo Mombelli

The South African composer/bassist has recorded and performed at many international festivals, including the Rome Villa Celimontana Jazz Festival, the Stockholm Jazz Festival, the German Moers and the ‘Leipziger Jazztage’ festivals, Banlieues Bleues festival in Paris, the ‘On the edge of Wrong’ festival in Norway, with amongst others, Mick Goodrick, Charlie Mariano, Jeroen van Vliet, Malcolm Braff, Adrian Mears and Samuel Bläser. He has recorded on Enja Records with Egberto Gismonti as well as with Lee Konitz, and has contributed music and played on the 1989 tribute for Jaco Pastorius, ‘Basstorius’, that also features the bassists Mathew Garrison and Carles Benavent.

He worked for two years with the Paris based company Lutherie Urbaine on community projects building instruments from recycled material. Back home in South Africa he can be heard as a bassist on many recordings with amongst others, Marcus Wyatt, Simphiwe Dana, Sibongile Khumalo, Kyle Shepherd and Miriam Makeba. As a producer he worked on the Shane Cooper album ‘Oscillations’ that won the jazz album of the year at the 2014 SAMA awards.

In addition to several ballets that have been choreographed to his music, and his many composition commissions that include more than 14 films, documentaries and animations (winning an award at the Hiaff Animation festival in Tokyo 2005), and commissions for Zim Ngqawana’s 50-piece orchestra performance, the ‘Stockholm Saxophone Quartet’ and his recent 2013 piece for the Grammy award-winning New York String Quartet ‘Ethel’, he has been nominated three times for a SAMA (South African Music Awards) for his recordings.

Besides performing, composing and recording, Carlo has been involved in music education for many years. In 1998 and 1999 he held a teaching post at the Richard-Strauss Conservatoire in Munich, Germany. Since then he has taught and run ensembles at amongst others, the Berklee College of Music in Boston and the Jazz Musik Akademie in Basel Switzerland. In 2015 he led the prestigious DKSJ-all-star-project with thirteen Masters students studying jazz in Switzerland.

He currently teaches at Wits University, Johannesburg, where he received his doctorate in composition in 2009.

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