Andreas Willers

Andreas Willers (born in Rendsburg, Germany, in 1957) is a guitarist, composer and improviser whose work connects contemporary jazz, free improvisation, experimental rock, blues and new music. After beginning guitar on his own, he studied in Hamburg and at the Guitar Institute of Technology in Los Angeles, where he worked with Joe Diorio; he later took part in classes with John Abercrombie and Dave Holland at the Banff School of Fine Arts. He has performed and recorded professionally since the early 1980s, beginning with a solo release for FMP in 1981.

Based in the Berlin area since 1984, Willers has collaborated with Gebhard Ullmann, Paul Bley, Louis Sclavis, David Murray, Axel Dörner, Achim Kaufmann, Mark Feldman, Tom Rainey and many others. His projects range from solo acoustic guitar and amplified improvisation to groups such as .AAA., Grid Mesh and the Andreas Willers Octet. In parallel with touring and recording, he has composed for jazz and new-music ensembles and taught jazz guitar at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin.

On Creative Sources, Willers appears on Nulli Secuncus (CS222), the trio with Meinrad Kneer and Christian Marien; .AAA. Live (CS255), with Axel Dörner and Achim Kaufmann; and FOUR (CS702), by Grid Mesh. More recent releases are Points of Dichotomy (CS879) and Fragments of the Unseen (CS894), both with Ernesto Rodrigues, Guilherme Rodrigues and Jung-Jae Kim. Across these recordings, acoustic and electric guitars take part in contrasting improvisational settings, from trio dialogue to electroacoustic textures.