About

Fabian Arends was born in in a small town called Friesoythe, Niedersachsen/Germany in 1990. Since 2010 he is living in Cologne, where he studied Jazz-Drums at the HfMT Cologne and graduated in 2014. Since then he is working as a drummer, composer, producer of electronic music and teacher for drums, ensemble and improvisation at HMDK Stuttgart.

His main focus of interest is the creation of a creative working environment for himself based on sustainable musical relationships as the foundation of his musical research and output.
This takes form in bands that he initiated, such as Fosterchild or Fractures and other groups that work extensively as musical collectives - e.g. Shannon Barnett Quartet, Fabian Dudek Quartet, Reza Askari Roar, Philip Brämswig Trio, Thomas Rückert Trio or the Jason Seizer Quartet.
In 2016 Arends released his first record as bandleader and composer called Levitate (klaeng records), which was nomitated for Echo Jazz in the category Newcomer of the year.
The formation of the danish-german collaboration Fosterchild grew out of a concert series curated by Arends and David Helm for the Loft Cologne in 2015 called First Meetings. Since
it ́s formation the band played some concert tours in Germany and Denmark including several appearances at Copenhagen Jazzfest or Cologne Jazzwek and recorded two albums called Fosterchild (Tangible music, 2019) and Dear Earthling (ILK Records 2020), both recorded at Deutschlandfunk Kammermusiksaal Cologne.

In 2022 Fabian Arends formed a new project called Fractures and released it ́s first record in march 2022 on Klaeng Records. This ensemble serves as a working laboratory for different improvisational concepts and compositions.
Arends ́ work is represented on more than 40 records. He collaborated with musicians such as Lee Konitz, Larry Goldings, Maria Schneider, Thomas Morgan, Ingrid Laubrock, Marc Copland, Bill Carrothers, Aurora Nealand, Shannon Barnett, Doug Weiss, Loren Stillman, Jacob Anderskov, Kasper Tranberg, Sebastian Gille, Hayden Chisholm, Nils Wogram, Wanja Slavin, Simon Nabatov, Ignaz Schick, Niels Klein, Pablo Held, David Helm, Robert Landfermann, Thomas Rückert a.o.

He appeared on numerous international Jazz Festivals including Jazzfest Berlin, Moers Jazz Festival, Melbourne Jazz Festival, Sydney Jazz Festival, Copenhagen Jazzfest, Elbjazz, JazzBaltica, Jazzfest Bonn, WDR Jazz Festival, a.o.

In addition to his work on drums Arends got very involved in the production of electronic music during the last few years and is using a setup of modular synthesizers and his laptop. He selfreleased some of the early works on Sonic Recreation and produced an electronic rework of music by the band Reza Askari Roar as ReOAR on qftf-Records.
In 2024 he released his latest electronic work Expo Dreams.
In 2018 Fabian Arends was a scholar of the Arts Foundation Baden-Württemberg. In the past he also received several prizes with different groups - namely Musikpreis des Landes Niedersachsen (2010), Sparda Jazzprize (2012,2013,2014) and Münchener Jazzpreis (2014).
 
Since 2016 he is teaching Drums, Ensemble and Improvisation at Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Stuttgart (HMDK).