About
Bernd Johannes Wolf, born in 1957, studied in Bochum (Ruhr University, Musicology / English Studies) and in Cologne (University of Music), complemented by a one year study period in Scotland (Central Region, Stirling). Beside his work as a music educator at a grammar school (retired 2020) Bernd Wolf has performed in concerts and concert tours (within Europe and beyond) of various symphonic orchestras and of diverse chamber music and jazz ensembles as a guitarist and double bassist.
Furthermore he works as a composer and arranger. His compositions cover a range from chamber music, vocal compositions, up to works for large symphonic settings. Some of his works have been published in print by the music publishing company edition49.
During his university studies he received important impulses for composing through Prof. Dr. Henning Frederichs. Bernd Wolf has participated in performances of works by Henning Frederichs, some of them as premieres. He recorded two of them on CD, "Sonata da chiesa" and "Khinah" (the latter dedicated to him and recorded by the chamber trio "Consortium Hortus Tritonalis", of which he was a member as guitarist from the mid eighties to the mid nineties).
As a jazz musician Bernd Wolf has had the opportunity, in the course of the years, to appear alongside renowned musicians such as Herb Geller (LP "Hot House"), Gerd Dudek, Lee Harper, Frank Wunsch, Matthias Nadolny, Michael Peters, Jona Kümper, Ilona Haberkamp and others.
For more than 25 years during his teaching career Bernd Wolf put major focus on the International Music Exchange with English partner schools (for a short while also an American one) with the aim to bring young musicians from different countries together without barriers and to get them to play and perform together as one band.
Bernd Wolf has been a member of ensembles like the “Rhine-Ruhr Philharmonic” or the Teachers’ Big Band of North Rhine-Westphalia and is one of the regular conductors of the regional symphony orchestra of the Ennepe-Ruhr region in Westphalia, which he co-founded in 2003.