Bio

Dr. Piotr Schmidt, born in 1985, is a jazz trumpeter, music producer, band leader, publisher, assistant professor at the Jazz Department of the University of Applied Sciences in Nysa, and a former lecturer for 10 years at the Jazz Department of the Academy of Music in Katowice.

He is a graduate of the Academy of Music in Katowice, where he received his doctorate in musical arts in June 2016. Piotr Schmidt is one of the top trumpeters in Polish jazz.

In 2023 Jazz Forum Magazine listed him as no. 1 Jazz Trumpeter in Poland!

Schmidt was a scholarship recipient at the University of Louisville, Kentucky, USA, in 2006, and during his debut period from 2006 to 2010, he won many individual awards and Grand Prix, including:

Individual Award at "Jazz nad Odrą" 2008
Individual Award at "I'st Tarnów Jazz Contest" 2008
Individual Award at "Jazz nad Odrą" 2009
Third place at "Zmaganiach Jazzowych" in Szczecin, 2008
Grand Prix at "III Novum Jazz Festival" in Łomża, 2010
Best Soloist Award at Getxo Jazz Festival, Spain 2010
Award from the Mayor of Gliwice for achievements in artistic creativity, dissemination, and protection of culture (2012)
Minister of Culture and National Heritage Commemorative Award (2013)

Piotr Schmidt's band awards include:

Grand Prix at XXX International Jazz Junior Bands Festival "Jazz Juniors", Kraków 2006
Grand Prix at "I'st Tarnów Jazz Contest", Tarnów 2008
Grand Prix at "Krokus Jazz Festival", Jelenia Góra, 2008
Grand Prix at "XII Ogólnopolski Przegląd Młodych Zespołów Jazzowych i Bluesowych", Gdynia 2009
Second place at Hoeilaart Jazz Festival, Belgium 2010
Grand Prix and Audience Award at Getxo Jazz Festival, Spain 2010

Piotr Schmidt has released 16 albums under his own name. Since 2011, he has regularly placed on the podium in the Top Trumpeter of the Year category in the Jazz Top survey conducted by prestigious Jazz Forum magazine, taking 1st place in 2023.

He has collaborated with artists such as Leszek Możdżer, Mino Cinelu, Aaron Parks, Walter Smith III, Matthew Stevens, Alex Hutchings, Ernesto Simpson, Harish Raghavan, Jonathan Barber, Zbigniew Namysłowski, Jan Ptaszyn Wróblewski, Włodzimierz Nahorny, Henryk Miśkiewicz, Wojciech Karolak, Grzech Piotrowski, Wojciech Niedziela, Mariusz Bogdanowicz, Wojciech Myrczek, Apostolis Anthimos, Marek Napiórkowski, Dominik Wania, Paweł Kaczmarczyk, Paweł Tomaszewski, Michał Barański and popular artists: Kuba Badach, Ewa Bem, Krystyna Prońko and hip hop artists eg.: Ten Typ Mes, Miuosh.

Piotr Schmidt is also the artistic director of the SJRecords label, which has released over 78 highly acclaimed albums by various artists since 2011 - www.sjrecords.eu.

Since March 2023, Piotr Schmidt has been the new CEO of the Silesian Jazz Club Music Association, the oldest continuously operating jazz association in Poland (since 1956). It is involved in organizing concerts and festivals in Silesia and beyond.

More about the Association at: www.sjc.pl.

About Piotr Schmidt's album - Tribute To Tomasz Stańko:

This is one of the top 10 jazz albums 2018!

Wulf Muller (Okeh Records - Sony Music Germany)

The music is heart-wrenching, melancholic, full of sorrow and… beauty.

Paweł Brodowski, head editor of Jazz Forum (Europe Jazz Network, February 2019)

While "Saxesful" was Piotr's breakthrough album, this disc, recorded with the quartet pure, is his masterpiece.

prof. Maciej Lewenstein

Tribute to Tomasz Stańko develops the musical ideas first heard in Piotr Schmidt’s earlier collaboration with Wojciech Niedziela, the album Dark Morning; ideas which bring to mind a sonic landscape familiar from ECM productions: painted with darker hues, infused with feelings and sensations, and firmly rooted in the European approach to rhythm and harmony. It is a landscape whose precursor in Poland was Tomasz Stańko.

Marek Romański, Jazz Forum 01-02 / 2019

Those fragments in which the narrative focuses around Niedziela's subtle piano overpower the listener with their beauty and tranquility, like the loveliest ballads.

Adam Domagała (JazzPress / Zdzazzemlzej)

There rushes through this album an incredibly jazzy gust and glow of Stańko’s music, but this tribute isn’t imitative: it’s the sophisticated esthetics of modern jazz (...) One of the most important publications of Polish jazz.

Dionizy Piątkowski (Era Jazzu)

A wonderful homage to the master of the trumpet. This may become Poland’s jazz album of 2018!

Michał Dybaczewski (Kurier Lubelski)

I'm thrilled by the beauty of this music.

Marek Bania (Jazz TV)

Overall this is a wonderfully executed and cleverly planned piece of music, which achieves the ambitious goal assigned to it in full. It is also a textbook example of what "tribute" albums should sound like, as well as a wonderful example of a bridge over a chasm of the infamous generation gap, which enables a smooth transition of the heritage from one generation to another. Polish Jazz at its best!

prof. Adam Baruch (The Soundtrack Of My Life)

About Piotr Schmidt:

(...) The young artist captivated the audience, and the sound of his trumpet proved to be absolutely unique. (...) Piotr Schmidt is an extraordinary artist and the most interesting trumpeter of the young generation. His flagship album "Tribute to Tomasz Stańko" places him among the most important heirs to the legacy of the legendary trumpeter. It has also paved the way for him to join the "golden collection" of Polish jazz and prestigious stages.

— Dionizy Piątkowski, Era Jazzu

Piotr Schmidt is a jazz trumpeter, as well as a composer and arranger with an exceptional knack for reinterpretation, a musician with a very open mind full of extraordinary ideas, a sonic erudite who also humbly respects the musical traditions of Polish and world jazz.

— Adam Dobrzyński, radio journalist, adamdobrzynski.blogspot.com

The albums released in recent years by Piotr Schmidt’s quartet have positioned this excellent trumpeter—and extremely intriguing composer—among the most original creators on the Polish jazz scene.

— Tomasz Janas, IKS / Poznań

(...) Piotr Schmidt is currently one of the most creative Polish musicians. In June 2024, he will turn 39, and his latest album is already the sixteenth in his artistic career. And, like the previous ones, it's outstanding! The acclaim for this album is evidenced by excellent reviews, as well as its victory in many polls for the best jazz album of the past year in Poland. (...) In my opinion, there are few albums in Polish jazz where the band sounds as cohesive and unified as on "Hearsay." Piotr Schmidt Music has achieved true mastery in this.

— Mirek Dziewa, "Bliżej Jazzu" (Radio Nadzieja)