Kurt Maas Award Builds Bridge with Berklee Now in its 10th year, the biennial competition honors the legacy of Maas 65. The top prize is a scholarship to Aspire: Five-Week Music Performance Intensive.
By
Kimberly Ashton
November 14, 2023
Ivan Lins (left) and Marco Pignataro (right) at the Kurt Maas Jazz Award concert.
Image by George Giakis
Marco Pignataro recalls being in the audience this summer when German jazz guitarist Elias Prinz and his trio took the stage at Munich's Isarphilharmonie concert hall. Prinz, a 23-year-old student at the Jazz Institute at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich, had just won first place in the institute's renowned Kurt Maas Jazz Award competition, and his set followed high-octane jazz displays by the competition's second- and third-place winners. But as Prinz settled in and began strumming his opening chords, the tone of the evening shifted.
When he started playing, I was like, What? What is this?' says Pignataro, the artistic director of the Berklee Global Jazz Institute (BGJI). And then I was like, Oh, wait a second. This is really special. In contrast to the performances earlier in the evening, Prinz's music was intimate and unusual, influenced by the music of Django Reinhardt.
I felt he was bringing something not just that he loves but that he identifies [with] in a way that was extremely convincing, Pignataro says. So it wasn't like hearing something nostalgic from the past. To me, he made that music really in-the-moment. He made it very relevant. After the set, he says, the audience went crazy. [Prinz] was playing in a way that everybody could really connect with the emotions it was how musical he was, how brilliantly expressive he was with his own music.
As first-place winner, Prinz earned a full scholarship to Berklee's Aspire: Five-Week Music Performance Intensive this past summer. Now in its 10th year, the biennial competition honors the legacy of Kurt Maas 65, a jazz pioneer who for years was the exclusive distributor of Berklee publications in Germany and who founded and developed the Jazz Institute in Munich.
He was the guy who started academic jazz education in Munich, says Camilo Dornier 81, who confounded the award with institute chair Claus Reichstaller and funds the prizes.
The Elias Prinz Trio plays at the Kurt Maas Award competition ceremony.
Image by Gregory Giakis
In the late '70s, Dornier had been a student of classical music when he took a noncredit class for jazz enthusiasts that Maas taught. On Maas's recommendation, Dornier came to Berklee to further explore jazz.
When Maas died in 2011, Dornier wanted to find a way to honor him. The following year, he and Reichstaller came to Boston, where Abraham Laboriel Sr., B.M. 72. 05H connected them with then-President Roger Brown, who liked their idea for the Kurt Maas Jazz Award.
Now, as Dornier and Reichstaller eye the future, they are working to expand the award program. Two years ago, they began developing partnerships with two Brazilian schools, including Berklee academic partner Faculdade e Conservat rio Souza Lima, and now offer scholarships that send two Brazilian students to Munich for four weeks. This year, part of the award ceremony concert was dedicated to Ivan Lins, a superstar of Brazilian music who, along with Pignataro, performed as a special guest artist.
In addition to building out the Brazilian program, Dornier and Reichstaller are looking to deepen the institute's involvement with Berklee. Their goal is to offer first-place winners a semester at Berklee, and possibly to develop a student and faculty exchange. Pignataro says such a program would be valuable not only for the Munich institute but also for the BGJI.
The possibilty of benefitting from such an exchange was one of the reasons Prinz took part in the competition, which is open only to Jazz Institute students. He had been playing guitar since he was 5 and studying Reinhardt since the age of 12, and wanted to come to Berklee to deepen his knowledge of other jazz genres.
He arrived in Boston freshly graduated from the Jazz Institute in Munich, but he still found a level at Five-Week that was well-suited to him. I can improve [upon] everything I learned the last four years. And because it's so intensive, I feel like I learned very, very quickly, he says. After the program, Prinz returned to Germany to work on his first album. In the meantime, he'll continue to play in Munich and share his influences from Berklee.
It's this type of sharing and enrichment that will keep jazz alive, Dornier says. I think we have to be aware that jazz on the global scale is a very small, tiny percentage of music. To be strong, to keep this whole thing running, we have to think internationally, we have to cooperate, we have to exchange, and we have to work together.
Related Categories
Berklee Today
News
Most Popular
Elena Pinderhughes
Image courtesy of the artist
Berklee Announces 2023 Fall Signature Series Lineup This years series will feature Elena Pinderhughes, Braxton Cook, Pavel N ez, and the Pletenitsa Balkan Choir, as well as a career-spanning tribute to Madonna.
Latest
Taylor Swifts Eras Tour film was a blockbuster at the box office in October, setting the stage for a larger trend in the music and movie industries.
Photo by Getty Images
Beyonc , Taylor Swift, and the Soaring Popularity of Concert Films Ralph Jaccodine of Berklee's Music Business/Management Department delves into the recent concert film phenomenon and its future trajectory.
From left: Andreea Gleeson, Tonya Butler, Hayley Roets
Image by Sam French
Berklee Honors TuneCore CEO at Annual Music Business Lecture Andreea Gleeson was the featured guest at the 30th Annual James G. Zafris Distinguished Lecture Series.
Elen
Most recent headlines
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
19/11/2025
Sphere Sound Kicks Up Its Heels at Radio City Music HallUltra-immersive system from the singular Las Vegas venue is also ready for sportsBy Dan Daley, Audio Edi...
19/11/2025
The Future of Stadium and Arena Video Control Rooms: Tech Leaders Talk 4K, IP, a...
19/11/2025
One Year at Intuit Dome: Walking Through the Stunning Arena's Advanced Video...
19/11/2025
SVG Sit-Down: IMG's Francois Westcombe Goes Inside IMG's Annual Digital ...
19/11/2025
Inside Brighton & Hove Albion's fan-first media machine By George Bevir
Tuesday, November 18, 2025 - 10:10
Print This Story
Brighton & Hove Albion'...
19/11/2025
Rock Chalk Rebuild, Part 1: Kansas Athletics Brings New Production Power to Rebu...
19/11/2025
Rock Chalk Rebuild, Part 2: A Pro's Guide to Kansas Athletics' New Video...
19/11/2025
MLB Media Rights Shakeup: NBC Inks Three-Year Deal for Sunday Night Baseball, Pe...
19/11/2025
Rohan Parashuram Kanawade attends the premiere of Sabar Bonda (Cactus Pears) at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival at Egyptian Theatre on January 26, 2025, in Pa...
19/11/2025
Awards season is heating up, and the International Documentary Association just ...
19/11/2025
Aerojet Rocketdyne President Ken Bedingfield and Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders were joined by state and local officials to celebrate the groundbreaking o...
19/11/2025
L3Harris and PentenAmio formalise their teaming agreement at MilCIS 2025, streng...
19/11/2025
Calrec gives Phoenix Broadcast Solutions its full support in strategic multi-year enterprise partnership New Singapore OB company invests in Calrec technology f...
19/11/2025
October brings a larger audience in front of TV screens. The cooler autumn weather and the continuation of new programming schedules brought increases in both t...
19/11/2025
IRVING, Texas Nexstar Media Group and Tegna filed applications on Nov. 18 with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) seeking its consent to transfer broad...
19/11/2025
Vitec has acquired Datapath, a developer of real-time video processing for large-scale video walls, AVoIP content distribution and KVM control in mission-critic...
19/11/2025
NEVADA CITY, Calif. Telestream has introduced ARGUS Version 2.3, which introduces Live Look, a feature that lets operators inspect live and on-demand streams vi...
19/11/2025
STAMFORD, Conn. and NEW YORK Charter Communications, Inc. has announced a major deal with Amazon Web Services (AWS) that establishes AWS as one of Charters stra...
19/11/2025
TOKYO Atomos has announced a major firmware update that brings integrated camera control to the Ninja TX GO and Ninja TX its new CFexpress-based monitor-recor...
19/11/2025
Berklee's Signature Series Reimagines the Musical and Visual Artistry of Col...
19/11/2025
PlayBox Neo departed the NAB Show New York 2025 on a high note. The company's all-new PlayBox Neo Suite made a splash on the show floor, drawing strong inte...
19/11/2025
AAVBR (American Audio Visual Baton Rouge), a leading full-service event production company serving Louisiana and the Gulf Coast region, has enhanced its product...
19/11/2025
In its mission to deliver live event services combining advanced engineering with a creative approach to captivating live sports and entertainment experiences, ...
19/11/2025
NEW YORK Short-form vertical video has exploded across platforms like TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, but a new survey commissioned by Media.net, a provider of c...
19/11/2025
NEW YORK YES Network, the regional sports network home of the New York Yankees and Brooklyn Nets, and CAMB.AI have struck a partnership they said will leverage ...
19/11/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has issued detailed guidance on filings that were disrupted by the government shutdown. While many of those fil...
19/11/2025
NEW YORK The popularity of NFL games is largely responsible for continued seasonal momentum in TV viewership into October (measured Sept. 29-Oct. 26), according...
19/11/2025
DirecTV has announced that its MyFree DirecTV streaming service has added seven new channels. Those include four sports services, NBA FAST, Red Bull TV, DAZN Ri...
19/11/2025
SURREY, U.K. Mark Roberts Motion Control (MRMC) has launched Flair Bridge, a compact device that transforms how operators control the company's motion-contr...
19/11/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission, which is continuing to rapidly ramp up its operations after the end of the federal government shutdown, has se...
19/11/2025
IRVING, Texas Nexstar Media Group and Tegna filed applications on Nov. 18 with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) seeking its consent to transfer broad...
19/11/2025
Martin Freeman, Jessie Buckley, Wu-Tang Clan's Raekwon, Eddie the Eagle and ...
19/11/2025
Rohde & Schwarz collaborates with Broadcom to enable testing and validation of n...
19/11/2025
Back to All News
Innato, starring Imanol Arias and Elena Anaya, arrives on Netf...
19/11/2025
Back to All News
Guillermo del Toro Sits Down With Troll 2 Director Roar Uthaug...
19/11/2025
Some projects feel monumental from the moment the first phone call comes in. When BCE, the host broadcaster appointed to coordinate the national coverage, asked...
19/11/2025
November 19 2025, 08:00 (PST) BAY AREA HOST COMMITTEE AND DOLBY PARTNER TO DELIVER IMMERSIVE FAN EXPERIENCES
During the Week of Football's Biggest Game...
19/11/2025
Michael D. Higgins: Ireland's Ninth President features RT Archives footage and interviews across seven decades
Watch Wednesday 19 November at 9:35pm on RT...
19/11/2025
Scripps Research scientists receive $1.1 million to advance AI modeling for HIV vaccine development New AI system helps scientists rapidly pinpoint the most pro...
18/11/2025
Independent media across Central America are operating under intensifying financial pressure, yet there is a clear appetite for models that can sustain both ind...
18/11/2025
NBA Debuts New Comms Infrastructure and Systems for RefereesTwo-phase rollout is intended to improve game flow, enhance officiating accuracyBy Dan Daley, Audio ...
18/11/2025
Platinum White Paper: How Aggreko Delivers Certainty For Broadcasters On The Wor...
18/11/2025
Kiswe Extends DTC Products With Kiswe Core Cloud-Based Tool for Distributing Con...
18/11/2025
Spanish Basketball Federation partners with ScorePlay to power digital transform...
18/11/2025
HBS selects BBright encoders and decoders to connect ST 2110 live production wor...
18/11/2025
Ashes to Ashes: Inside TNT Sports' hybrid and maverick' production plan...
18/11/2025
SVG All-Stars: Mimi Fotopoulos, Director, Talent and Production Operations, Tenn...
18/11/2025
SVG LIVE! Conference Explores the Tech Side of Sports and Entertainment ConvergenceLive sports and music productions increasingly share gear and infrastructureB...
Kurt Maas Award Builds Bridge with Berklee Now in its 10th year, the biennial competition honors the legacy of Maas 65. The top prize is a scholarship to Aspire: Five-Week Music Performance Intensive. 
