Académie du Jazz honors Andreas Schaerer
Swiss jazz singer and vocal virtuoso Andreas Schaerer has been awarded the "Prix du Musicien européen" by the French Académie du Jazz.
Together with Marc Stucki and Benedikt Reising, Schaerer founded the Jazzwerkstatt Bern in 2007, a collective that brings together musicians and composers from different stylistic and geographical backgrounds. As a singer, he tours extensively around the world with various projects of his own. Most notably with his sextet Hildegard Lernt Fliegen. At the Bern University of the Arts, he teaches jazz and contemporary music in the bachelor's program and music composition in the master's program.
As a composer, he regularly writes commissioned works for classical ensembles and contemporary formations in addition to music for his own projects. In 2004 and 2005 he wrote two first string quartets, and in 2015 Schaerer's first symphonic work The Big Wig premiered by the Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra (founded by Pierre Boulez) at the Lucerne Festival.
The French Académie du Jazz was founded in 1954 by Jean Cocteau and André Hodeir. It awards several prizes. In 2023, under the chairmanship of Jean-Michel Proust, the number of prizes was reduced to seven in view of the Academy's 70th anniversary this year.
