Tobias Rüger

Tobias Rüger was born in Berlin in 1965.
From 1978–82 he was a pupil of Frankfurt’s legendary saxophonist Alfred Harth.
From 1988–94 Tobias Rüger studied concert saxophone with Detlef Bensmann at Universität der Künste (University of the Arts) in Berlin as well as Musicology at Freie Universität Berlin.
Starting playing music in the early ’80s, being involved in a project by Heiner Goebbels at the Moers Jazz Festival 1985.
In 1989 he wrote music for saxophone trio for a radio adaptation of “Yes, peut-être” by Marguerite Duras recorded by West-Berlin’s radio station SFB. With his band Die Schwindler he recorded an album of German Cabaret songs from the ’30s in 1992 for Sony-Columbia. In 1997 he performed “Die Dichterliebe” by Robert Schumann with Die Schwindler featuring singer Phil Minton in Frankfurt, Berlin and Düsseldorf.
During the ’90s he participated in several recording sessions of Berlin’s Radio Symphonic Orchestra, (among others on Dimitri Shostakovich’s “Golden Mountains” and Franz Waxman’s “Hemingway Suite”).
In 2001 he and singer Yahli Toren were invited to perform the programme tradición y modernidad with his arrangements of Jewish-Spanish songs. The event took place in the synagogue of Porto, Portugal as part of the event “Porto — Cultural Capital of Europe 2001”.
Beginning in 1999 he recorded the complete works for saxophone by John Cage with the Berlin-based ensemble intersax. The CD “A Cage of saxophones Vol. 1” was released in 2001, Vol. 2 in May 2006 by mode records, New York. “Stratosphères” — a concert piece for saxophone trio based on the music of ’89’s radio production of “Yes, peut-être” — was premiered at the Teatro Fondamenta Nuove in Venice in January 2006 by intersax.
In 2003/04 he participated as sideman in BBC-award winner Shantel’s projects, playing several saxophone tracks on his albums “The Great Delay” and “Bucovina Club Vol. 1 & 2”.
Since 2004 he also worked as musical director for projects of Frankfurter Kammeroper (Frankfurt Chamber Opera) and Schauspiel Frankfurt (Frankfurt’s municipal theatre).