Christian Lillinger


Christian Lillinger is a German drummer, composer and percussionist. He was born in Lübben, grew up in the German village of Kuschkow, and has been living in Berlin since 2003 working as a musician and composer. Christian has performed in concerts and at festivals in Europe, Asia, Africa, South America and the US. He has played with Joachim Kühn, Beat Furrer, Miroslav Vitous, David Liebmann, Wadada Leo Smith, William Parker, Evan Parker, Luis Sclavis, Joe Lovano, and Tony Malaby.

History

Christian Lillinger studied with Günter Sommer at Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber in Dresden from 2000 to 2004. In 2000, he won the International Improvisation Contest in Leipzig. From 2001 to 2003, he was a member of the Bundesjazzorchester, the German federal youth jazz orchestra.
In 2008, Lillinger formed the band Grund. Their first release, First Reason was released in September 2009 with Second Reason, the second release, following in 2013. Both appeared on Clean Feed. The third album Grund was released on Pirouet Records in 2015. The latest album COR was released in 2018 on his own Plaist label. It was among the best reviewed albums of Downbeat Magazine in 2018.
In 2014, he co-founded the band Amok Amor with Peter Evans, Petter Eldh and Wanja Slavin. Amok Amor released their self-titled debut in 2015 on Boomslang Records. In 2017 they followed up with We know not what we do, which was released on Intakt Records. In April 2017 Amok Amor played at the Cheltenham Festival, which was broadcast on BBC.
Between August 2016 and March 2017, Lillinger was a scholar of the Bartels Fondation in Basel. In 2016, the German TV Network 3sat produced a documentary about his life and musical passion. In 2017, he founded his music label Plaist-Music. In the same year Christian was awarded the SWR Jazzpreis 2017. He plays in the trio Punkt.Vrt.Plastik with Swedish bassist Petter Eldh and Slovenian pianist Kaja Draksler, with whom he released a self titled album in 2018, which was released on Intakt Records.

Honors

2017: 2017