The interesting thing is that he's using avant-garde techniques, but in a traditional framework…”

Will Friedwald (NY Sun)

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NEW CD:

TOPICS IN AMERICAN HISTORY 

JENTSCH GROUP NO NET

(Jentsch) writes lavish suites – which he then plays with remarkable terseness and attention to detail. His narratives are vivid and often very funny. His latest, TOPICS IN AMERICAN HISTORY, couldn’t be more relevant. ”

NewYorkMusicDaily

About Chris Jentsch

Chris Jentsch is a Brooklyn-based composer, bandleader, and guitarist working primarily in jazz and contemporary improvisational forms. Based in NYC since 1999, his main ensemble is Jentsch Group in its trio, quartet, nonet, or large configuration. He has performed at many leading NYC venues, among them the Cornelia Street Café, Barbès, the World Turning Festival (Medicine Show Theatre), ShapeShifterLab, the Internet Café, Symphony Space, Tea Lounge, the Knitting Factory (on Leonard St.), The Kitchen, and Greenwich House Music School: The Renee Weiler Concert Hall.  

As a composer, he has been the recipient of grants, commissions, or fellowships from the Maelstrom Percussion Ensemble, the Penfield Commission Project, American Composers Forum (3), the Composers Assistance Program of the American Music Center (2), NewMusicUSA, Meet the Composer, New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA)(3), Ucross Foundation (2), The Commission Project, the New Music Collective (2), the Donald Knutson Memorial Faculty Development Fund, and most recently, Chamber Music America/Doris Duke New Jazz Works. 

Jentsch attended the Berklee College of Music and has liberal arts or jazz guitar degrees from Gettysburg College, the New England Conservatory, and the Eastman School of Music. He earned the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Jazz Composition from the University of Miami in 1999 and is published by the University of Northern Colorado Press, Advance Music, Blue Schist Music, and Fleur de Son Records. Full formal bio here. Additional chatty info including Chris' early years can be found here.

(Jentsch is) adept at wringing orchestral colour out of motifs without obscuring their unifying effect with cluttered writing; the music has room to breathe, as do his soloists, himself included, whose rock-influenced guitar sound works in this context. ”

— Ray Comiskey, The Irish Times 

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