Splash - Perkussion NRW (2014)

The percussion ensemble Splash brings together highly talented young drummers from North Rhine-Westphalia and works with them to create works between avant-garde, jazz and new improvised music. The ensemble is supported by the State Music Council of North Rhine-Westphalia and the musikFabrik NRW and is a project funded by the Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia.

After studying music in Hanover and Essen, Stephan Froleyks works as a composer, performer, author and curator. As a drummer he gave concerts in Germany and abroad, took part in radio and CD productions and played at international festivals in Berlin, Donaueschingen, London, Munich, Stuttgart, Münster and Warsaw. Froleyks constructs novel instruments, including flute machines, knife tables, string pans, steel blades and a corrugated tuba. He received composition commissions from the Kunststiftung NRW, the Wittener Tage für Neue Kammermusik, the city of Münster and the Musiktage Donaueschingen, among others. Stephan Froleyks composed theater music, radio plays, film music and multimedia works for the Lower Saxony State Theater in Hanover, the German Theater in Göttingen, the Landestheater in Tübingen, for Radio Bremen, WDR and EXPO2000. Stephan Froleyks teaches as a professor at the Musikhochschule in Münster.

Ralf Holtschneider was enthusiastic about the variety of percussive instruments early on. Born in Duisburg, the educator, lecturer and musician, winner of the national competition "Jugend musiziert" and graduate of the Robert Schumann University in Düsseldorf and Folkwang University in Essen, works as a musician for theatres, opera houses and concert orchestras in North Rhine-Westphalia. For many years he has been involved with the State Music Council of North Rhine-Westphalia in the area of ​​promoting the gifted. As a lecturer, he gives didactic seminars at music colleges, organizes courses and workshops and takes part in competitions organized by the German Music Council as a juror.