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Teis Semey

Teis Semey (1993) was born in rural Denmark and found his interest in music at the age of 7. After shuffling between playing piano and playing guitar, he settled on guitar. Moving to Sweden in 2007, he started studying music in a specialised programme for young jazz talents in the city Malmö. After a brief year in Stockholm, studying jazz guitar and classical composition, classical piano and jazz guitar, he moved to Amsterdam, earning a bachelors and masters degree in jazz guitar in the Conservatory of Amsterdam, studying under Jesse van Ruller, Reinier Baas, Maarten vd Grinten, Matiss Cudars, George Dumitriu and Martijn van Iterson.

Teis Semey draws influences from all around: the works of Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Ravel as well as Wayne Shorter, Arctic Monkeys, Nirvana, Audioslave, Kurt Rosenwinkel and John Coltrane.

Teis Semey has released one CD as a band leader; “Where The Fence is the Highest” (2019, TRPTK) along with “Pull a String, a Puppet Moves” with PULL (2015, Loumi Records) and “Rotterdam Suite” by The New Rotterdam Jazz Orchestra (2019).

Teis has performed in venues such as Blue Whale (Los Angeles) and Bimhuis (Netherlands). Next to being an eclectic sideman, Teis has won the first prize in the Princess Cristina Jazz Concours and won the Best Coltrane Arrangement Prize in Keep An Eye Jazz Awards 2017.

Awards

1st prize & Press prize, Princess Cristina Jazz Concours 2014 2nd prize & Press prize, Leiden Jazz Awards 2015 Semi-finalist & Best Coltrane Arrangement, Keep an Eye Jazz Awards 2017

Teus Nobel & Liberty Group: Human First

Read "Human First" reviewed by Phillip Woolever

by Phillip Woolever
April 16, 2023

Highly respected Dutch trumpeter Teus Nobel has forged a distinguished, modern jazz-based discography which includes expertise ranging from small bands to orchestras, and mainstream pop to theatrical show tunes. The third project released by Nobel's Liberty Group progresses along traditional quartet-type experimentation which proves to be some of his most extraordinary work yet; it sounds like a thematic sky with no limit in imagination or proficiency. The album's tour de force is the twenty-seven minute “Human First," which ...

Hi-Res Jazz

New Music in an Anxious Time: Teis Semey, Peggy Lee and Philipp Gropper

by Mark Werlin
June 4, 2019

Historians of jazz identify the African-American civil rights struggle circa 1945-1965 as the locus for the most active involvement of jazz music in expressions of social and political protest. One of the earliest recorded instances of explicit political protest in jazz, “Strange Fruit," was refused by Decca, singer Billie Holiday's record label, for fear of reprisals from Southern radio stations and record stores. The independent Commodore label released the record in 1939; a searing indictment of lynching and a landmark ...

"An ambitious work that crosses musical and cultural boundaries, Where the Fence is Highest heralds the arrival of a gifted composer-guitarist.” - Mark Werlin, AllAboutJazz

"An absolutely daring and striking debut of a modest but thorough guitarist.” - Erno Elsinga, Jazzenzo

"With "Where The Fence Is The Highest" the Danish guitarist Teis Semey delivers a grandly conceived work full of parameters derived from jazz, classical and contemporary avant-garde.",

"...Surfing suggestive enthusiasm in the gray zones between Duke Ellington and Steve Reich.",

"...To be clear, this is not a curiosity cabinet or attempted "third stream" but a personal interpretation of the possibilities between playing a (very limited) score and the improvising additions