Trio
Splendor presents three of the most distinctive voices of the transatlanting jazz scenes tonight! The collaborative compositions of the Golub/Kintopf/Ber Trio are deeply rooted in free improvisation, resulting in music that consciously unfolds between fixed structures and the open moment. The works function less as finished statements and more as living frameworks for discovering a musical language that coalesces into a distinct ensemble expression through their collective playing.
The trio combines the compositional depth and experience of Phillip Golub (Brooklyn, NY), the improvisational density and structural curiosity of Roger Kintopf (Cologne), and the rhythmic thinking and poetic sensibility of Samuel Ber (Paris/Brussels). Together, they create music that productively combines intellectual rigor with emotional immediacy.
Phillip Golub - piano
Roger Kintopf - bass
Samuel Ber - drums
BIO'S
Phillip Golub is a Brooklyn-based pianist, improviser, and composer whose work moves fluidly between jazz, creative music, and contemporary composition. Originally from Los Angeles, he is known for highly original, expressive music that is grounded in tradition while remaining open, exploratory, and unconstrained by genre.
Described by the Wall Street Journal as “a musician in fast ascent” and by JazzTimes as “a brilliant improviser,” Golub has also been praised for his “seemingly boundless creativity” and for a practice that dissolves the divide between improvised and composed music. His debut release as a bandleader, Abiding Memory, earned him a nomination for the 2025 German Jazz Prize in the “Newcomer of the Year – International” category. In 2025, he was also a jazz artist in residence at Spoleto Festival USA and Musician-in-Residence at Dumbarton Oaks.
Golub performs widely on New York’s jazz, creative music, and world music stages and has collaborated with artists including Layale Chaker, DoYeon Kim, Lesley Mok, Anna Webber, Amir ElSaffar, Brad Shepik, Aynur Doğan, and Seajun Kwon. Alongside his own projects, he is deeply committed to collaborative work, including the collective Tropos and the duo dream brigade with Lesley Mok.
He has also worked extensively with Cecil McBee, Wayne Shorter, and Esperanza Spalding, and continues his work with the Wayne Shorter estate.
Roger Kintopf is a Cologne-based double bassist and composer who has established himself as an attentive listener and imaginative voice on the contemporary jazz scene. His work explores the dialogue between different sonic worlds and is shaped by a balance of composition and improvisation.
Raised in a musical household, Kintopf developed a deep connection to music early on. The curiosity that once led him to spend countless hours listening continues to inform his artistic approach today. From 2016 to 2022, he studied at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz in Cologne with Dieter Manderscheid, Sebastian Gramss, Dietmar Fuhr, and Robert Landfermann, among others.
A defining feature of Kintopf’s work is his commitment to long-term artistic processes. He is interested in the depth that can emerge when distinct musical personalities collaborate over time and explore new sonic territory together. Since 2016, he has led his ensemble STRUCTURE with Asger Nissen, Victor Fox, and Felix Ambach, releasing five albums and touring in Germany, Denmark, France, Poland, and the Czech Republic. As a solo artist, he released solo in 2021 and solo II in 2024.
His newest project, CIPHER, with Kirke Karja, Felix Hauptmann, and Philip Dornbusch, extends his compositional work through twelve-tone principles, creating space for discovery between structure and intuition.
Samuel Ber (b. 1995) is a French-Belgian drummer, composer, and improviser. Through his projects Pentadox, Malaby/Dumoulin/Ber, the new quartet Stairs & Shells, and the interdisciplinary, fully improvised performance Scaphandres Party, he explores creative ways of reaching a state of collective flow, where different realities, individual voices, and concepts can coexist.
After moving to Paris at 21 to study at the CNSMDP, he quickly emerged on the international scene and began collaborating with musicians including Michael Attias, Benoît Delbecq, Marc Ducret, Michael Formanek, Louis Sclavis, Sarah Murcia, Mat Maneri, Stéphane Payen, Eve Risser, John Hébert, Magic Malik, Susanne Abbuehl, Matthieu Michel, Bo Van Der Werf, Lotte Anker, Lynn Cassiers, Guillaume Orti, Dave Douglas, Jonas Westergaard, Todd Neufeld, Samuel Blaser, Daniel Levin, Nelson Veras, Sylvaine Hélary, Antonin-Tri Hoang, Petter Eldh, Otis Sandsjö, Matt Mitchell, Elias Stemeseder, Evi Filippou, Felix Henkelhausen, and Camila Nebbia, as well as with the Belgian ensembles Mâäk and MikMâäk.
Described as a “virtuoso poet of the drums,” with a style “as mathematical as it is sensual,” Ber is regarded as one of the most remarkable musician-researchers of a younger generation already deeply connected to the international creative music scene.
