lotte anker

Lotte Anker: tenor-alto-sopranosaxophone & composerKnown for her intense playing and one of the strongest improvisers in the freeform/ improfield in Denmark + very active as a composer.As a child and young Lotte Anker studied classical piano, guitar (flamenco) and (all kinds of) song but took up the saxophone and improvised music in 1980, primarily influenced through the music of John Coltrane and Wayne Shorter but also the more experimental jazzscene in Scandinavia at that time. She has studied music at the Copenhagen University from 1980-84 as well as participated in several courses and workshops lead by e.g.: Joe Henderson, David Liebman, John Tchicai, Marilyn Mazur, David Murray, Bob Brookmeyer.Through the 80´ties she played in various danish/scandinavian groups playing music from modern jazz, nordic sound, avantgarde rock, freeform, worldmusic, performance/dancetheatre etc and founded (w/pianoplayer Mette Petersen) in 88 ”Lotte Anker/Mette Petersen Quartet” (later Quintet)In the mid 90´ties she found herself playing more and more free improvised/open structured and experimental music as well as working more intensely with composition; trying to combine her main musical interests in the worlds of modern/free/impro jazz and contemporary (new) music.Lotte Anker works currently as co-leader (w/ Ture Larsen) of the highly acclaimed 12- piecegroup “Copenhagen Art Ensemble” + trio with Craig Taborn (pno) and Gerald Cleaver (dr) and Sonographic July (w/ Tim Berne, Sylvie Courvoisier, Ikue Mori and Tom Rainey). Also ongoing collaboration with pianist Marilyn Crispell in a number of different constellation.Other current workinggroups and ongoing collaborations include: the quartet Ictus (w. Marc Ducret (gui), Peter Friis-Nielsen (bass), Stefan Pasborg (dr)), Mokuto Quartet (w/ Herb Robertson (tp), Peter Friis-Nielsen, P.O. Jørgensen (dr). Has also played and worked with a.o: Paal Nilssen-Love, Miya Masaoka, Peter Brötzman, Anders Jormin, Andrew Cyrille, Marilyn Mazur, Arve HenriksenLotte Anker has toured and performed at festivals, clubs/concertspaces etc in most of Europe, USA, Canada and Africa.As a composer L.A. has written for both smallgroups, bigband, chamberorchestras, strinquartet, choir etc.......