Biography

Christian Korthals, a.k.a. Tian, was born in Nuremberg, Germany in 1978, where he spent the first two decades of his life, until he developed itchy feet and started travelling.

In Saarbrücken, he studies Computational Linguistics, keeping himself busy with the question how computers could be made to speak. Eventually, he discovered, however, that human beings are happier when they communicate with other human beings.

As a street musician, he travelled through Canada, the USA, Australia, India, Spain, Germany and the Netherlands. He even stayed in the Netherlands for four years to study music at Arnhem Conservatory. By the way, the weather was best in Spain, and the food was the most remarkable in Holland, to put it gently.

These days, Tian is living as a freelance musician in Cologne, Germany. With his band "Tian et al" he presents his own jazz compositions, which originate from the time of travelling. With "El Viento" he plays a blend of Arab music, flamenco and balcan rhythms, and with the gypsy band "D'Artagnan" he continues to roam the world as a gypsy. He can also be heared with Tippaman's Carribean Express.

Tian plays soprano and tenor saxophone and piano. His rhythmically impulsive and playful style combines elements from jazz, latin and flamenco. As a composer and arranger, Tian has written about a douzen of themes for combo, three big band arrangements, and arrangement for saxophone quintett (published by Advance music), and a couple of experimental works.

Tian teaches the saxophone and the piano at private music schools in Köln-Mülheim and Krefeld.