Christian Tschuggnall


Christian Tschuggnall is an Austrian drummer and composer based in Berlin, Germany.

Biography

Tschuggnall studied classical drums and percussion in Innsbruck, Austria. After moving to Berlin in 2009, he received his master's degree in jazz drums and composition at the Berlin University of the Arts where he studied with John Hollenbeck, Greg Cohen, David Friedman and Kurt Rosenwinkel.
His brother is the singer Michael Tschuggnall, who won the Austrian Castingshow Starmania in 2003 and was a participant in the Show Dancing Stars.

Career as a drummer

Tschuggnall has collaborated with a variety of different artists and ensembles, including The Cinematic Orchestra, Shackleton, Jocelyn B. Smith, Robyn Schulkowsky, Joey Baron, Frittenbude, Wolfgang Mitterer, Bluatschink and Wolfgang Fiedler.
In May 2012, he worked with Manu Delago on the DVD Manuscripts, which features the London Symphony Orchestra. During his studies in Innsbruck he won the nationwide Austrian music competition Prima La Musica four times.

Career as a composer

''#klangberlins''

As a composer, Tschuggnall became internationally known through the branding-campaign #klangberlins of the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, which went viral on the Internet shortly after its release. It consists of 13 YouTube-videos, showing the whole range of the symphony orchestra imitating everyday sounds of the city Berlin, like people eating currywurst or riding the S-Bahn. The videos were watched over 3 million times. After local media reported on the success of the campaign, international media praised it for experimenting with classical instruments and trying to bring new audiences into classical concert halls.
For the campaign Tschuggnall composed a score together with the Australian composer Michael Edwards, with whom he also runs the music studio unheard in Berlin.
#klangberlins won several awards, including the Golden Award of Montreux and the Best Youtube Video of the year Award by the Art Directors Club Germany. For the score, Christian Tschuggnall and Michael Edwards got also nominated in the category Best Sound Design for the Music and Sound Awards 2017.

Bands and projects

As a bandleader, Tschuggnall released two albums with his group Snooze-On as well as with the experimental synthesizer and drum duo Sunrise Over A Dystopic Future City, a collaboration with the American keyboard player Liz Kosack.
Tschuggnall is a founding member of the Berlin Collective for Composed and Improvised Music .

Discography

As a bandleader