Max Gaertner composer / arranger

Max Gaertner is a musician living in Frankfurt am Main and active as a percussionist, author, composer and workshop lecturer.
After initial training on the piano, he received his first percussion lessons at the age of 6. He quickly became acquainted with the instrumental variety, appeared as a soloist already as a pupil and was awarded prizes in various competitions.
He was a member of the Young German Philharmonic Orchestra and a scholarship holder of the "Live Music Now" foundation established by Yehudi Menuhin.
Max Gaertner completed his studies at the renowned HfM 'Hanns Eisler' Berlin in 2012 with two diplomas. This was followed by additional studies in psychology and education. He is currently doing his doctorate at the Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber in Dresden with Prof. Dr. Michael Heinemann.
Engagements with, among others, the Berlin Philharmonic, Ensemble Modern and Deutsche Kammer- philharmonie Bremen have already taken Max Gaertner to countries such as Austria, Switzerland, France, Italy, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Spain, Poland, the Czech Republic, Belgium, Russia, Finland, Estonia, the USA and China. Numerous CD and DVD productions document his work.
In addition to his active concert and research work, Max Gaertner has directed the Free Music School in Bad Soden am Taunus since 2013. In the same year, he founded the JugendPercussionEnsemble Hessen to promote particularly talented young percussionists.
His current focus is primarily on the combination of percussion with electronics and the development of experimental concert forms. In his project Per- cussion & Electronics, he combines solo and chamber music for percussion and (live) electronics with video animation and light effects to create a captivating performance.
In 2015, Max Gaertner founded the research institute Zukunfst to intensively explore innovative performance and mediation concepts.
Since February 2017, he has been a lecturer for percussion, percussion ensemble and rhythmic ear training at the Berufsfachschule für Musik des Bezirks Mittelfranken in Dinkelsbühl.