About

Life and work

Grabosch received trumpet lessons since the age of nine. After graduating from high school in 1974, he studied German, musicology and philosophy at the Ruhr University in Bochum and the University of Cologne. He then completed a diploma course in classical trumpet at the Folkwang Music Academy in Essen until 1984.

In the 1980s he founded and directed the ‘Big Band Ruhr’ for 2 years. Later he was a guest in the Cologne ‘Jazzhaus Big Band’ and in the studio also with Paul Kuhn’s orchestra. The musical centre of his work was initially in the Ruhr area with the groups around Georg Gräwe and Theo Jörgensmann. Later he worked with the Cologne groups of Dirk Raulf, Georg Ruby and Thomas Witzmann. He played at many jazz festivals in Europe, including 1986 at Clusone Jazz with Roberto Ottaviano, Mark Dresser and Tiziano Tononi, and 1990, 1991 and 1992 at the Jazzfest Berlin with the ensembles of Norbert Stein, Klaus König and Michael Riessler. Tours have taken him to North and South America.

Already during his studies he performed works of new music. Together with Melvyn Poore and Radu Malfatti, who like him were members of the GrubenKlangOrchester in the late 1980s, Grabosch developed a trio programme that used predominantly experimental playing techniques and which, in terms of sound, can be assigned more to New Music than to jazz. A more intensive encounter with New Music began in the 1990s. This was followed by guest performances with the Ensemble Modern in Frankfurt and Musique Vivante in Paris with Vinko Globokar’s work “Laboratorium”. He finally received an invitation to join the founding ensemble of musikFabrik NRW.

Grabosch also worked as trumpeter, orchestra manager, composer and musical director at the theatre (Schauspielhaus Bochum, Schauspiel Köln, Vereinigte Städtische Bühnen Krefeld und Mönchengladbach, Théâtre national de Rennes, Théâtre national de Chaillot). He was a sought-after studio musician and played in the successful musicals Starlight Express and Les Misérables. His teaching activities included a teaching assignment at the University of Duisburg. His trumpet career ended in 1997 due to occupational disability.

After moving with his family to the Bavarian Oberland, he trained as an “Information Technologist Multimedia” at Siemens-Nixdorf in Munich and, until 2008, developed IT solutions and multimedia applications for industry as a business consultant. Until 2019 he worked as a freelance designer for web and database applications.