Updated: February 3, 2023
Born: August 23, 1967
Ed Partyka is a bass trombonist/tubist, composer/arranger and conductor. Originally from Chicago Illinois, he received a BA degree from Northern Illinois University before moving to Germany in 1990. He completed a Masters degree in jazz trombone performance at the Conservatory of Music in Cologne, where he was also a member of the G.E.M.A. Jazz Composers Workshop, led by Bob Brookmeyer.
He was recipient of the 2000 "A.S.C.A.P. / I.A.J.E. Commission Honouring the Centenary of Louis Armstrong". He was 1st prize-winner of the 1998 "NDR Musikpreis" (Hamburg), 1st prize winner of the Jazz Composers Alliance 1998 Julius Hemphill Composition Awards (Boston) and finalist in the 1996 HR Emerging Composers Competition (Frankfurt).
Ed has toured and recorded with the Bob Brookmeyer New Art Orchestra, Vienna Art Orchestra, Carla Bley, WDR Big Band, NDR Big Band, Mnozil Brass, Gansch & Roses and the Roman Schwaller Nonet.
He leads the Ed Partyka Jazz Orchestra EPJO, is musical director of the Jazz Orchestra Regensburg and is Co-Leader of the Flip Philipp/Ed Partyka Dectet.
From 2000 – 2007 he was musical director of the Concert Jazz Orchestra Vienna, and 1999 – 2006 from the Sunday Night Orchestra.
Mr. Partyka has appeared as a guest conductor with the HR Big Band, NDR Big Band, RIAS Big Band, RTV Big Band Slovenia, Summit Jazz Orchestra, Cleveland Jazz Orchestra, Lucerne Jazz Orchestra, West Australian Youth Jazz Orchestra, Generations Festival Big Band, Zürich Jazz Orchestra, Jazzgroove Mothership Orchestra, Klüvers Big Band, Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw, Sandvika Storband, Milan Svoboda´s Prague Big Band, Oslo Workshop Big Band and the German National Youth Jazz Orchestra ("BuJazzO").
He is currently under contract as arranger/conductor with the HR Big Band in Frankfurt, where he leads several projects a year in a wide variety of styles and genres.
During his tenure with the HR Big Band he has arranged music for and conducted projects with jazz artists Theo Bleckmann, Fay Claassen and Dena Derose, Fado vocalist Ana Moura, electronic jazz group NuBox, Brazilian vocalist Fabiana Cozza, rock-blues artist Chuck Leavell and the pop band Sunrise Avenue.
Also active in the area of jazz education, Ed Partyka has held teaching positions at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Germany and the Conservatory of Music in Vienna. He is currently Professor for Jazz Theory & Composition and department chairman of the Jazz Institute at the Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Graz, Austria and teaches composition at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Lucerne, Switzerland.
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Ed Partyka Jazz Orchestra: Hits!*, Vol. 1
by Jack Bowers
There's actually an asterisk after the title of the Ed Partyka Jazz Orchestra's latest album, Hits! Vol. 1 In small print, at the bottom left-hand side of the jacket, are the words except track 8." As Partyka explains in the liner notes, much of the album is comprised of a cross section of the music that has generated the most enthusiastic response" from audiences, and thus the orchestra's hits." The exception is track 8, Hair of the Dog," a staple ...
read moreBob Brookmeyer with the Ed Partyka Jazz Orchestra: Madly Loving You
by Jack Bowers
Kansas City–bred valve trombone master Bob Brookmeyer is top–billed on this handsomely conceived and superbly performed album because it was a gift from Ed Partyka’s Jazz Orchestra and a number of prominent composer / arrangers to Brookmeyer on his seventieth birthday in December 1999. Partyka, a Chicagoan who has lived since 1990 in Cologne, Germany, had taken part in Brookmeyer’s Jazz Composers’ Workshops in Cologne, was deeply influenced by them and sought to repay the debt by producing a big–band ...
read moreUMO Helsinki Jazz Orchestra
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JazzWax by Marc Myers
Jazz orchestras in America have dwindled to a precious few. Once a dominant jazz aggregation from the 1920s into the early 1970s, the big band tradition is now largely a museum piece relegated to repertory institutions on the receiving end of sizable donor support. Or they are in the entertainment divisions of the four branches of the military. In all fairness, how else can large instrumental ensembles survive when so many musicians are required on a consistent basis, original music ...
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Primary Instrument
Composer / conductor
Willing to teach
Advanced only
Credentials/Background
Professor for Jazz Composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz, Austria. Composition Lecturer at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Switzerland.
Clinic/Workshop Information
Low brass, composition arranging and big band workshops available. All levels.