Dr. Ursel Schlicht

Musician, researcher, author, educator

Pianist Ursel Schlicht plays improvised music, jazz, new music, and is a scholar and educator. Schlicht holds a doctorate in musicology from the University of Hamburg and has published a book about the impact, reception and working conditions of women jazz musicians, for which she conducted in-depth interviews with Carline Ray, Marian McPartland, Barbara Carroll, Paula Hampton, Joanne Brackeen, Karen Borca, Diedre Murray, Connie Crothers, Jane Ira Bloom, Michele Rosewoman, Geri Allen and Myra Melford (Coda Verlag, Germany). 

Her compositions interweave notated and improvised material. Schlicht is featured as leader or co-leader on various CDs and performs internationally with her duo with Robert Dick, her quintet with Stephanie Griffin, Catherine Sikora, Hilliard Greene and Andrew Drury, is part of Hans Tammen’s Third Eye Orchestra and Sarah Weaver’s SLM Orchestra.

Fostering intercultural collaboration has been an important focus of her work. Her current trio with Shams Hashemi Mahmoud and Rolf Denecke combines Afghan tabla with jazz, and the collective trio with Anna Jonsdottir and Ute Völker features Icelandic songs in avant interpretations.  Since 2016, she works with refugees from the Middle East in Germany. Her project SonicExchange during documenta13 in Kassel (2012) featured over 50 artists from nine countries and has continued ever since.

During her time in Brooklyn as a freelance musician and educator, she designed and taught seminars on Music & Gender and on Improvisation at Ramapo College of New Jersey, has taught Music Appreciation at Rutgers University and Masterpieces of Western Music at Columbia University in New York until 2013. She currently lives in Germany and teaches Improvisation at the University of Kassel.