Robert Giegling is a German trumpet player focused on the genres of hiphop, modern jazz, R'n'B and electronic music.
Robert Giegling (born 1983) received his first piano classes at the age of 7 which were followed by trumpet classes at the age of 8. From 2004 on, he studied the diploma degree jazz trumpet which
he completed successfully in 2008 receiving excellent marks.
From 2003 until 2008 he studied music pedagogy for secondary education (majors: piano) at the University of Music and Performing Arts Mannheim, Germany. In 2005, Giegling together with the Mannheim Jazz Orchestra, won first prize at the contest of German Academies of Music in the category Bigband. Furthermore, he played at the LandesJugendJazzOrchester (Lajazzo) of the state Baden-Württemberg, directed by Bernd Konrad and at the BundesJazzOrchester (Bujazzo), directed by Peter Herbolzheimer. Giegling is two-time award winner of Jugend musiziert nationwide and also received the Otto-Rombach prize in the category “Neue Musik” (New Music) together with bassoonist Carl von Houwald.
In 2010, he released his first album Tafelrunde (Neuklang Records) with his own band, the Robert Giegling Quintett, which received very positive reviews and which was presented by several radio stations throughout Germany.
In 2011, as part of his degree (Zweites Staatsexamen) at the State Seminar for Didactics and Teacher Education, his thesis Vom Konzertsaal in die Disco - Klang/Sound, Rhythmus/Groove - zeitgenössische Musik in der Kursstufe. won the prize for “Most innovative teaching“.
In 2015, the Robert Giegling Quintett released their second album Rough Songs (Unit Records). Just like the first album, the second one received highly positive reviews. On this second album Giegling added new members to the band (Markus Ehrlich, Christoph Heckeler, Joel Locher and Daniel Mudrack) such as Daniel Denmark (US rapper), Matthew Bookert (sousaphone and tuba) and Patrick Flassig (bass trombone).
Apart from this, Giegling initiated several other projects with other musicians such as Three Trumpets (Martin Auer, Volker Deglmann), JazzKlazz'Experience (together with his sister Katharina Giegling, Marlene Steg, Sandi Kuhn, Volker Engelberth, Clara Pouvreau, Arthur Balogh und Daniel Mudrack) and IIL FAT (a hip hop band together with Simonal Bie, singer from Mozambique/ Spanish origin and Samuel Brandt, drummer from Stuttgart).
In 2016, the Robert Giegling Quintett performed at the Jazztage Mainz and at the International Jazz Festival Jazz goes Föhr, just to mention a few. In 2017, he founded Archie Banks (a hip hop band) together with Samuel Brandt, Calvin Bynum, Daniel Denmark, Lukas Pfeil, Joel Büttner and Christoph Gärtner. In the same year, the band performed at the Trans4JAZZ-Festival, among others. In July 2018, Archie Banks had its first major appearance at the JazzOpen Stuttgart (one of the biggest German jazz festivals) as support for Fanta4, a famous German pop-rap group.
In 2017 and 2018, he travelled to Havana, New Orleans and New York where he performed with several local musicians, developed his new sound and shaped his way of thinking and feeling in terms of music, a time which can be seen as highly influential on his work.
In 2017 he performed with Hector Martignon, a Grammy-nominated Columbian pianist, who is also known for having performed with Grammy-award winner Arturo Sandoval, in 2019 he performed with Grammy-nominated artist The Rail Abandon.
In February 2021 he released his new album Everyone with Unit Records.
In 2023 and 2024 he continued his journey as an artist with several projects including concerts at Theaterhaus Stuttgart and also some celebrated performances with DJs such as Soulme and Electronic Trumpet. In 2024 he received a PhD with a dissertation about Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard and Booker Little at the University of Music and Performing Arts Mannheim.
Translated by Claudia Gurt