About
Since 2018, Heidi Bayer has been pursuing her own artistic projects. Her duo "Bayer/Scobel" received the Folkwang Jazz
Award in 2018. In the same year, she started her new band, "Virtual Leak," which in March 2020 released its first CD on Tangible Music. In 2021 she started her quintet "KORSH"
with Norwegian accordion player Kalle Moberg and released her second album as a bandleader in 2022 (also on Tangible Music). In the same year she was nominated for the "German Jazz
Award" in the brass category. One year later, she received the German Jazz Award in the Category "Composition of the Year" for her piece "Cookie Dough".
Heidi Bayer is also in demand as a solo trumpeter in groups ranging from small ensembles to big bands. Recent projects in which she is involved include Sara Decker's "Expand", Shannon Barnett's latest quartet "Wolves and Mirrors," Stefan Karl Schmid's "Pyjama" octet and Marià Portugals "Erosao". She is a regular member of trumpet sections in several big bands, including the monthly performing "Subway Jazz Orchestra".
Besides her concert activities, Heidi is an active and passionate teacher. She has offered private trumpet lessons and led big band and trumpet workshops for many years and across Germany. In April 2019, she accepted a permanent half-time position as an instructor of trumpet performance and conducting at the University of Oldenburg’s music department, where she also led the university big band and won the "Teaching Award" in the 2019/2020 academic year. From 2021 to 2022, she taught jazz trumpet, ensemble conducting, improvisation and applied aural training at the Mannheim and Stuttgart Universities of Music. In 2023, she accepted a permanent half-time position as an instructor of ensemble conducting at the Cologne University of Music. Additionally, she teaches the subject of jazz pedagogy at the Jazzcampus Basel in the winter semester 2024/25.
Since 2023, she is also part of the permanent teaching team of the Landesjugendjazzorchester Bayern (official youth jazz orchestra of the state of Bavaria).
Born in 1987 in Lichtenfels in Upper Franconia and raised in neighbouring Kulmbach, Heidi Bayer was trained as a classical clarinettist during her school days and switched to trumpet and jazz at the age of 17. After successfully completing her bachelor's degree in "Art, Music and Media – Organisation and Mediation" at the Philips University of Marburg (2007-2010), she decided to pursue a career as a professional trumpeter.
In 2010 she started her bachelor in "Jazz and Popular Music" at the University of Music Mainz with Axel Schlosser and Frank Wellert. After an associated one-semester exchange program (2014) at the University of Miami with Prof. Brian Lynch and Prof. Martin Bejerano, she successfully completed her studies in 2015 and has been living in her adopted home city of Cologne ever since.
In October 2017, she enrolled in the Master in Music "Jazz | Improvising Artist" program at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen, where she studied with Prof. Ryan Carniaux and Thomas Rückert.
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