Twists is unpredictable in his utterances, alternates melody and improvisation in an almost architectural way, mixes influences from contemporary composed and improvised ways, lets jazz blend into pop music and vice versa and builds a musical empire that you can hardly find elsewhere.

Pianist and composer Philipp Rüttgers (1981) received the prestigious composition assignment from the North Sea Jazz Festival in 2018.

Philipp grew up in Berlin in the 1980s during the heyday of the squatters’ scene, punk diva Nina Hagen, the Chernobyl disaster as a real threat and of course the wall. Stubborn times as earliest memories for little Philipp.

It is not surprising that he has found the passion for fairy tales, baddies, princesses and monsters here. Central to the fantasy world of Philipp are the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen. The writer known from fairy tales like ‘The ugly duckling’, ‘The Chinese nightingale’, ‘The snow queen’ and ‘The flying suitcase’.The recurring elements in Andersen’s stories are the spiritual quests of us being human, the threatening evil, thedesire for social growth and the acceptance of destiny.