Uli Kempendorff (1981) is a saxophonist and clarinetist from Berlin. He has studied music in Berlin ("Hanns Eisler" AoM) and New York (CCNY). He can be heard on sixteen CDs and LPs as a leader, co-leader and sideman, as well as on numerous radio broadcasts and productions ( (WDR, BR, NDR, rbb, mdr).
His work to date suggests a broad interest in music and different musical situations. He plays and has playedmusic based on microtonal spectral-analysis with Benjamin Weidekamp's quartet, Jazz with Ulrich Gumpert, Rolf Kühn, Rudi Mahall, Jimmy Scott, Christian Weber and Julia Hülsmann, Alternative Country with Yellow Bird, Reaggae and Dancehall with Seeed, Cree-Canadian Cabaret with Tomson Highway, has even been on long tours with Danish singer Gitte Haenning and occasionally plays in Robert Wilson's productions at the Berliner Ensemble Theater in Berlin.
Kempendorff has produced, composed and published three CDs with his quartet FIELD, which received the Studio Award of the Berlin Senate in 2015. With Field (with Ronny Graupe, Jonas Westergaard and Oliver Steidle), he regularly plays concerts in Germany, Switzerland and even in Turkey, at the International Jazz Festival in Izmir, 2014. 2014 he was also artist-in-residence of the Albert-Koechlin-Foundation at the Stadtmühle Willisau in Switzerland. In 2007 he was one of the awardees of the JazzConcour International in Fribourg, Switzerland; he has won Studio and Project Awards of the Berlin Senate (by himself and as part of a collective) in 2004, 2011, 2012 and 2014.
Kempendorff has, among others, played at EuroJazz in Mexico City, the Fusion Festival in MeckPomm, dem Musikfest in Thaya (Austria), Beautiful Days in England, Discover Jazz in Burlington, VT, at JazzFest Berlin, JazzTage Leipzig, Planet IndigenUs in Toronto, WDR Jazztage in Cologne and at the Montreux Jazz Festival.