Pascal Schumacher (born 12 March 1979 in Luxemburg)[1] is a Luxembourgish jazz musician, composer and percussionist who has founded a number of groups including the Pascal Schumacher Quartet.[2] He also plays and composes classical chamber music.
Pascal Schumacher studied classical percussion at the Luxembourg Conservatory. He continued his studies at the Strasbourg Conservatory and at the jazz department of the Royal Conservatory of Brussels. He obtained master's degrees in jazz-vibraphone at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague with Frits Landesbergen and in musicology at the Marc Bloch University in Strasbourg. Among those who assisted him in his studies were Gary Burton, David Friedman, Stefon Harris and Charles Loos.[3]
Schumacher cofounded the "Interchange" ensemble with saxophonist Nadine Kauffmann (1995) and, in 2001, the experimental percussion group "Stroke X". From 1997, he became increasingly involved in improvised music, especially jazz, playing with a number of different bands and performing with a variety of artists. In 2002, he set up his own Pascal Schumacher Quartet with Jef Neve (piano), Christophe Devisscher (bass) and Teun Verbruggen (drums). Their first album, Change Of The Moon was released in March 2004, providing the band with opportunities to travel across Europe as well as to Australia and South Africa. Their second album, Personal Legend was released in 2005 and their third, Silbergrau in 2007.[3] [4] In a preview of the quartet's contribution to the London Jazz Festival in November 2010, Thomas Gray characterized Schumacher (vibes) and Franz von Chossy (piano) as "resourceful improvisers, with an abundance of lucid ideas effortlessly articulated over the many shifts of metre. Meanwhile," he comments, "Christophe Devisscher (on bass) and Jens Düppe (on drums) play with a mix of muscle, precision and exquisite dynamic sensitivity."[5]
With his quartet, Schumacher has performed at a number of jazz festivals including the North Sea Jazz Festival (Rotterdam), London Jazz Festival, Wangaratta Festival of Jazz, Copenhagen Jazz Festival and JVC Jazz Festival (Paris). They have also performed at clubs and festivals in Tokyo, Beijing, Shanghai, New York, Paris, Berlin, London, Munich, Liverpool Manchester, Athens, Warsaw, Melbourne, Sydney, Montreal, Toronto, Cape Town, Saigon and Mexico City.[6]
Pascal played as soloist with Zürcher Kammerorchester, WDR Rundfunkorchester Köln, la Camerata Megaron Athens, l’Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, l’Orchestre de Chambre du Luxembourg, United Instruments of Lucilin, the Kammerorchester Berlin, the Neue Philharmonie Frankfurt and the Junge Norddeutsche Philharmonie.
In 2004, Jef Neve and Pascal Schumacher set up a duo (vibraphone and piano) playing a new kind of chamber music combining the sounds of Claude Debussy, Steve Reich and Igor Stravinsky.[7] The duo has been warmly welcomed by the Philharmonie Luxembourg for the "Rising Stars" concert series in some of the largest concert halls in Europe in association with the European Concert Hall Organisation.[8]
Pascal Schumacher also teaches at the Luxembourg Conservatory.