Meinrad Kneer

Double bass player and composer Meinrad Kneer operates on the borders of jazz, improvised, ethnic and contemporary music.
Born 1970 in Munderkingen/ Germany, after school years and civil service he studied Biology at the University of Tübingen. From 1995 till 1999 he studied music and double bass at the conservatories of Hilversum and Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Ever-since he is present and active in the Dutch music scene and abroad.
He co-led the quartet and septet Dalgoo together with reed player Tobias Klein between 1998 and 2005. He was awarded the prestigious ‘Jur Naessens Music Award’ in 2002 with the septet Dalgoo - New Anatomy, a project around the work of Russian absurdist and writer Daniil Charms.
Currently he is involved as a (co-) leader in the groups: President of the Globe (a project around the work of Russian futurist writer Velimir Chlebnikov), the piano trio van Veenendaal/ Kneer/ Sun (“...one of Holland’s most interesting contemporary jazz groups” - Ken Vos in www.draaiomjeoren.nl, 6th March 2007), RAAM 5 (where dialogues from comic-strips meet improvised music) and a new exciting string-quintet (see groups).
As a sideman in demand he plays with groups such as: Bite the Gnatze, Play Station 6, the Joost Buis Tentet, Gravitones, Carousell and Spoon 3. He has played with a wide variety of Dutch groups and projects such as Barana & Co, the AXYZ-Ensemble, the bigtet Tetzepi, the Ab Baars Quartet, Roomtone and the Henneman String-quartet.
He has performed with among others, Najma Akhtar, Han Bennink, Fred Frith, Tobias Delius, Touria Hadraoui, Tristan Honsinger, Denise Jannah, Anne la Berge, Paul Lovens, Michael Vatcher and Corrie van Binsbergen.
In the past years he has been touring Russia, Poland, Slovenia, Moldavia, Bulgaria, France, Belgium and Germany.
Since 2001 his work as a composer has been supported by the ‘Fonds voor de Scheppende Toonkunst‘.
In 2006 he co-founded together with pianist Albert van Veenendaal the independant label Evil Rabbit Records .
Together with flutist Mark Alban Lotz he organizes a creative music series for free improvisation: U-EX(perimental) in the SJU Jazzpodium in Utrecht, the Netherlands.