Peter Schärli

Biography

When he was 10 years old, he started to learn trumpet. He continued his course at the Lucern jazz school, when he was working as a clerk. When he was a clerk in a machine factory, he joined the blues band Exodus as a singer, pianist and trumpeter in 1974. From 1977 to 1981, he attended the Swiss jazz school in Bern and graduated from this school with master's degree. In this time he took part to project with Urs Blöchlinger and John Wolf Brennan. He founded his own trio with Marco Käppeli and Thomas Durst in 1982. This trio became quintet later in 1984, when Hans Koch and the guitarist Giancarlo Nicolai or the saxophonist Roland Philipp joined the group. Since 1988, Schärli has made international music tours with his quintett. In these tours, he has collaborated regularly with Glenn Ferris as a guest musician (Germany, France, the Commonwealth of Independent States, India and later also Austria and Latin America) and has performed several albums. In 1994, the Peter Schärli Special sextet was formed with Ferris, Tom Varner, Dürst, the pianist Hans Feigenwinter and the percussionist Béatrice Graf. He has performed also with Hazy Osternwald, Co Streiff, Hans Kennel, Gabriele Hasler, Dom Um Romão, Werner Lüdi, Rick Margitza, Paul Rutherford, Tommy Meier, Saadet Türköz, Gerry Hemmingway and Charlotte Hug. he also performed in several circuses like Federlos. Since 1981, Schärli has been teaching at jazz School Luzern, which is now Lucerne School of Music. Schärli is the son of the previous member of the Swiss national council, Hans Schärli(1925-2014).

Awards

In the jazz poll of the Brazilian Daily Newspaper "Tribuna da Imprensa". Schärli was chosen as the best trumpeter of the year 2006.