Klaus Gesing was born in Düsseldorf, Germany.

After having studied both clarinet and saxophone in Germany for some years (he won the 1 st prize in the prestigious "Jugend Jazzt" Award of NRW on tenor sax in 1988)  he moved to the Netherlands in 1990.

He was professionally trained in Jazz (John Ruocco) and Classical (Leo van Oostrom) Saxophone at the Royal Conservatory of Music in The Hague , where he finished his studies with a special remark for his compositions and artistic expression. He had additional studies and occasional concert appearances with David Liebman.

In the Netherlands he led his own group "The Jahi Jazz Ensemble", writing all the material and focusing on composition. With this group he had various radio broadcasts, concerts and festival appearances.

He was awarded Best Soloist at the Middelzee Jazzfestival in 1994 and won the Van Merlen Jazz Prize of The Hague in 1995.

In 1996, now principally based in Austria , he took part in the Vienne International Jazzcompetition in France , where he was again awarded the prize as "Best Soloist".

In 2000 he presented his first CD under his own name, the title of which stems from the first collection of tunes by John Dowland and is consequently called "First Booke of Songes".

His long term musical partnership with Glauco Venier led to two very different recordings: "Klaus Gesing & Glauco Venier play Bach"(published in 2002) where the two venture to use some of the more known pieces of J.S. Bach as a basis for very sophisticated improvisations, and "Klaus Gesing & Glauco Venier play Songs" (2003) - a beautiful compilation of Standard tunes, recorded during a Television appearance in Capodistria.
Here they display what improvisation means to them: there is no setlist, there are no preconceptions about arrangements, but a constant exchange of creative, intertwining ideas that manage to create energy and lyricism at the same time.


2002 is also the year of the first CD of the Trio with Norma Winstone, Glauco Venier and Klaus Gesing: "Chamber Music", a CD that really sparked the development of this Trio's comunicational capacities.

As a member of the 'JazzBigBand Graz' he contributed two of his own compositions and arrangements to the CD "A Life Affair" published at Universal Music in 2004.

In 2005 he presented his first film music, and wrote, in collaboration with the Italian organ player and orchestral director Paolo Paroni an entirely new score for "Joan of Arc" (1926) by the Danish Director C.T. Dreyer. The orchestration lent itself to presentations in churches, due to the presence of a 30 persons mixed choir, organ and soprano saxohpone.

In 2006 he presented his second album as a leader entitled "Heartluggage", recorded and performed by Gwilym Simcock(GB), p; Yuri Goloubev (RUS), b and Asaf Sirkis (ISR), dr. The compositional and comunicational concept of this band was rewarded with most enthousiastic reactions both by public and press - an orchestral way of writing and the superb musicianship of all individuals involved created a big band-sound, while staying nimble and fast moving as possible only in a small group.

2006 has also seen the first staging of a more experimental work by Klaus Gesing, again dealing with film and film-music. This time it is a re-elaboration of Samuel Beckett's only movie, called "Film". Klaus Gesing reworked the images of the film, trying to underline the philosophical implications and at the same time rendering it a vehicle for a musical treatment on two closely linked levels.
Using exclusively sounds of breath and heartbeats, he composed a basic soundtrack for "Film" that in his version lasts 42min. (approx. twice the length of the original movie) and completes the soundtrack on-stage with improvisations on soprano saxophone and bass clarinet using live-looping.

In 2008 a second CD ("Distances" ECM 2028) of his long term collaboration with the English vocalist Norma Winstone and the Italian pianist Glauco Venier, now called Winstone / Gesing / Venier was published for the German label ECM and was rewarded with a great reception by press and audiences.
"Distances" unifies the very different sources from which the Trio draws it's inspiration (originals by Gesing and Venier, Songs by Satie, Coltrane, Peter Gabriel, Jazz Standards and Free Improvisation, most of the words written by Winstone) by the uninihibited freshness of theTrio's musical approach and the shared vision of a group sound.
"Distances" received the "Prix du Jazz Vocal" 2008 of the French Academie du Jazz and was nominated for the Grammy in the Category "Best Jazz Vocal Record" in 2009.

His second appearance on the Label ECM (in 2009) is marked by the publication of Anouar Brahem's "The Astounding Eyes of Rita", with Anouar Brahem, oud; Klaus Gesing, bcl; Björn Meyer, e-bass; Khaled Yassine; darbouka and bendir.
This CD is dedicated to the memory of the lately deceised poet Mhamoud Darwish.

End of August 2010 will see a new ECM-Release by Winstone / Gesing / Venier: "Stories Yet To Tell".

Further collaborations in the field of Jazz have been with, among others: Kenny Wheeler, Chris Lawrence, John Taylor, Enrico Rava, Dave Liebman, Take 6, New York Voices, Gabriele Mirabassi, Alfred Kramer , Adelhard Roidinger,Christian Muthspiel, Peter O´Mara, Uli Rennert, Paolino dalla Porta, Francesco Sogiu, Wolfgang Puschnig, Bebo Ferra, Peter Herbert, Jamey Haddad, Uli Scherer, Dieter Ilg , Thomas Alkier, Wayne Darling, Fritz Pauer, John Hollenbeck, Riccardo Zegna, Henning Siewerts, Jarrod Cagwin…