Berk Schneider is a trombonist and music educator living in Southern California. Know for his "deep and probing" musicality (San Diego Story), Berk has been described as a “valiant proponent” of newly composed music by San Diego Union Tribune. His curated performances seek to provide profound and immersive experiences via electronic elements and collaboration with talented composers. His research-creation publications delve into the exploration of how listeners perceive sonic boundaries and navigate performance dynamics in relation to time and space while investigating the intricate interplay between memories, dynamic semiotics, improvisation, and ingrained auditory habits. These investigations contribute to the development of distinctive and often interactive sonic environments, facilitating the exchange of tacit knowledge among participants. This, in turn, nurtures practices that not only honor the rich traditions of Western classical music but also embrace the diverse international artistic community.
Berk's musical experiences have taken him across the globe, from Saint Peters Basilica, Vatican City with the Orchestra of the Americas, performing Mozart under the direction of Helmuth Rilling to Carnegie Hall with Maestro Valery Gergiev and Ravel's Bolero. He's taught and performed in Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Colombia, China, Croatia, The Czech Republic, Ecuador, Germany, Mexico, Netherlands, Peru, Philippines, Uruguay, and United States. From the eerie perplexity of the Orange Show Monument nestled in Houston’s East End to the sold out Toyota Center, Frankfurt's Bockenheimer Depot, and the Berlin Philharmonie — performances occur in venues ranging from abandoned bunkers, parks, and traditional concert halls. His collaborations are equally varied, having worked alongside musicians such as Joshua Bell, Josh Groban, Steven Schick, conductors Brad Lubman, Enno Poppe, Robert Spano, composers Beat Furrer, Philip Glass, Helmut Lachenmann, Alvin Lucier, actor Alexander Fehling, the Houston, Firelands, and La Jolla symphonies, Ensemble Modern, as well as director Heiner Goebbels.
As an avid contemporary musician Berk has commissioned and performed many new creative works. A grant awarded to him by the Hilda and Hershel Rich Family Endowment for Community Service funded the creation of "Procession," a trombone concerto by Seung-ah Oh, recipient of the Buma Toonzetters Prize and Guggenheim fellow. In addition, Berk collaborated with rising star Sang-Song, winner of the Harvard Fromm Music Foundation and Nee Commission. His new trombone concerto entitled "Frozen Grief" was premiered by The La Jolla Symphony & Chorus in December, 2022.
In Europe Berk has performed in the Darmstadt Summer Course and with Ensemble Modern in the Cresc Biennale Frankfurt, Klangspuren Festival Schwaz, the Kurt Weill Festival, Playsonic Festival, Hessischer Rundfunk radio broadcasts, and other projects. He also worked regularly with the Staatstheater Mainz, Schauspiel Frankfurt and Sinfonieorchester Bad Nauheim (2017). A regular musician with contemporary music ensembles in Austria and Germany, Berk performed "Antipoden" for trombone and ensemble by Gerald Resch with Ensemble Zeitfluss in Vienna (October, 2016) and premiered Ulrich Rasche’s "Sieben gegen Theben/Antigone" in Frankfurt (February, 2017). While being rolled on a 3x4 draisine through Frankfurt Central Station, he made a solo appearance during Studio Libeskind's "One day in Life" concert series, performing Berio's "Sequenza V" (April, 2016). As a founding member of Mobile Beats Ensemble, a formation of alumni from the International Ensemble Modern Academy (2015/17), Berk will have the opportunity to invent many new projects in the future.
Berk is a dedicated teacher and currently works as an Associate Instructor (AI) for the UC San Diego Department of Music. This position has given him the opportunity to teach many different courses, including hip hop, popular music, western music history, music in cognition, electronic music, and fundamental music theory. Prior to his position at UC San Diego, Berk worked as a freelance educator and music clinician in Houston Texas (2010-15) and Frankfurt Germany (2015-18).
In the spring of 2020 Berk recorded a dozen new chamber works in collaboration with the ACTOR project, soon afterward spearheading an independent creative-research grant proposal (MAP) that sought to investigate collaborative relationships between performers and composers during the creation process via digital media and binaural technologies. His findings have been published. His current project entitled Timbrenauts: Creative explorations in timbre space (2022-23) continues with this research in collaboration with Yuval Adler.
As a doctoral candidate at UC San Diego he recently curated his experimental solo show 'Night and Day' in 2022 and recorded SEG, a new work by Sang Song which reflects on the human condition in isolation, resonating with issues introduced by the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-21). He will release a debut album with improvisatory trio and friends Douglas Osmun (AI hub) and Joey Bourdeau (percussion). Debut album— ElectroCognition: A Journey Through the Intersection of AI and Electronic Music (winter 2024)
Berk's mentors include James DeSano, Per Brevig, Allen Barnhill, Robin Eubanks, Uwe Dierksen, and Roger Reynolds. He is a graduate of Oberlin Conservatory, Rice University, Frankfurt University of Music, and has been a finalist and honorably mentioned in numerous international trombone competitions, including the Robert Marsteller Competition and Lewis Van Haney Philharmonic Prize.
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