BIO
Julius Gabriel was born in 1988 in East Berlin. He studied at Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen, completing courses at both the Jazz Department and the Institute for Computer Music and Electronic Media, taking part in orchestral and chamber music projects in contemporary music, as well as projects at the Institute of Contemporary Dance, before graduating with a Bachelor of Arts as a Saxophone Performing Artist.
Dedicated to a wide spectrum of musical practices, Gabriel is interested in the embodied phenomena of improvisation and composition, engaging with the dynamic interplay between corporeality, acoustics, and transcendence. In his solo work, he explores the boundaries and intricacies of the saxophone, integrating acoustic and electroacoustic approaches, innovative techniques, and expansive sonic treatments. He can be regarded as a virtuoso in an existentialist sense, with an expanding body of solo performances and recordings.
He is a member of the Blue Shroud Band, an international ensemble of fourteen musicians with diverse musical expertise and backgrounds in baroque, contemporary, jazz and improvised music, and has also performed with the London Jazz Composers Orchestra — both directed by composer and bassist Barry Guy.
Julius Gabriel has played a central role in the realisation of numerous collaborative projects. Examples include his work with percussionist and sonic sculptor João Pais Filipe, with whom he recorded the trance-inducing albums Paisiel and Unconscious Death Wishes. He also co-founded an avant-garde group with transfeminist lyricist and performer Xenia Ende, producing their transgressive large-scale works The World Is All That Is The Case and Star of the Future. In a quintet with Savina Yannatou, Agustí Fernández, Barry Guy, and Ramón López, he explored collective composition and improvisational form across seven movements, released as In the Light of the Current Myth.
With a deep interest in diverse musical genres, Julius Gabriel has collaborated with musicians from a wide range of traditions, including Hindustani sitar player Navya Rudrappa, Carnatic violinist Sumanth Manjunath, mridangam player Yashwant Hampiholi, and kologo artist Guy One, as well as free improvisers such as Susana Santos Silva on trumpet, Gonçalo Almeida on bass, and Gustavo Costa on drums. He has also performed alongside free jazz legend Gunter Hampel, the space rock band Solar Corona, the extreme metal band Moral Collapse, the black metal band Névoa, the punk jazz group Sereias, and the large sound collective The Dorf, which has featured, among others, FM Einheit and Caspar Brötzmann.
Beyond his work as a saxophone player, he has collaborated as a researcher and musical director in contemporary dance pieces, sound choreographies, and performative lectures.
He has served as an artist-in-residence in Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Switzerland and India and toured extensively, performing at venues and festivals spanning both independent and underground scenes as well as prominent cultural institutions.
PRESS VOICES
"The young Julius Gabriel plays ferocious baritone"
New York City Jazz Record
"Gabriel demonstrated that there can be virtuosos in non-conformist practices"
Passos na Floresta
"Wonderfully meditative tracks which place you somewhere quite strange...Gabriel’s sax lets you soar through a varied topology of the mind"
The Fragmented Flaneur
"An acid sonic world full of diversified sound qualities...a minimalist yet absorbing dramatism"
Nowe Idzie od Morza
"Not only a jazz experimentalist...a world of encounters that passes through Afro influence, similar to the sphere of Sun Ra...to even more hazy and dark landscapes"
Galeria Zé do Bois