BIOGRAPHY

Christian Plattner was born in 1963 in Tulln, near Vienna, Austria.

He has been leading a ‘triple life’ – with parallel careers in Music, Mathematics and Management – since his teenage years.

Growing up listening to his father Helmut Plattner playing trumpet in traditional jazz and swing bands he soon

took up the clarinet and the alto saxophone. In 1979, his father founded the family band

Plattner & Plattners Jazz Corporation, which during the years would include

younger brother Bernhard Plattner on trombone, and their sister,

Susanne Plattner, as vocalist and guitar player.

From 1982, he studied Mathematics at Vienna’s Technical University. Around the same time, he joined

Oscar Klein's European All Stars, touring Europe with the Austrian-Swiss trumpet player.

In 1985, he started his own company, doing business mainly in Software Engineering and Consulting.

With the tenor saxophone and the clarinet as his main instruments,

he began to appear as a soloist at European jazz festivals.

Leaving the Technical University in 1987, he already had attracted the attention of American musicians. In October 1987, trumpeter Yank Lawson invited him to join him on a Europe-wide concert tour. Soon to follow was Christian Plattner’s own first tour of the United States, which included the 1988 Los Angeles Classic Jazz Festival and the Minneapolis Jazz Party.

Back in Europe, he released his first album, aptly entitled Jazz Party, and found himself on a busy concert schedule, mostly with American artists touring the continent and the British Isles. While continuing to play Traditional Jazz and Swing, he also turned to Modern Jazz, touring with a.o. Woody Shaw and Phil Upchurch. For an extensive list of the artists he has worked with,

please have a look at the Credits page.

On the management side, after having been employed by Dutch Philips Electronics, he finally returned to his roots in Mathematics and Computer Sciences, working for telecommunications companies nextra, KPNQwest, T-Systems and Tele2.

Currently, Christian Plattner is Key Account Manager with Hutchison Drei Austria.

His current musical activities are focused on his two ensembles Christian Plattner Jazz Party and Classic Jazz Trio.