Manuel Geier lives with his wife and his three children in Keltern (Germany).
He was playing in classical ensembles and orchestras since his early childhood.
In 2003 he played a series of concerts with the "Strike Percussion Ensemble" in Michigan, USA also as a soloist.
After ten years of lessons in percussion, drums (with Albrecht Volz, Thomas Aman) and the piano at the Music School Renningen (Germany) followed one year of intense drum lessons with Don Raaymakers (MI, USA / Robert Hohner Perc. Ens.). Back in Germany he got educated in classical percussion from Gerald Koeck (Stuttgart Philharmonics) for about four years.
In 2007 he started studying percussion (music education and orchestral music) at the University of Music SAAR with Prof. Thomas Keemss and Matthias Weissenauer where he finished his prediploma with maximum score in spring 2010.
Afterwards he attended the University of Music Karlsruhe to study with Prof. Isao Nakamura, Jochen Brenner and Thomas Hoefs, where he earned his Bachelor of Music (performance and education) with Honours in 2012 and received his Master of Music in percussion performance with distinction in 2016.
At the age of 14 he made his first experiences with composing experimental music using an old Atari-computer and an 8 track cassette recorder. In doing so he focused on connecting, shifting, merging, extracting, inverting, reflecting, reversing, twisting, phasing and overlapping of melodic and rhythmical patterns. With that came his enthusiasm for composing music. He was able to deepen his private composition studies with Kathrin A. Denner and Prof. Markus Hechtle.
His music is strongly influenced by the effort to connect complexity with simplicity. By doing that it’s his ambition that the listener, the interpreter and himself will achieve a sensibility for the artistic content in music and to get new insights and awareness for the musical material.
Next to mathematical and physical aspects, as creating noise, sound waves, frequencies, exploring endless possibilities using electronics, are spiritual and meditative values the main focus of his music.
Highlights of the last years were the world premieres of some of his composed works. Both at chamber music nights at the Opera in Saarbruecken and at concerts of the percussion class at the University of Music Karlsruhe, his compositions drew positive feedback in the audience.
Next to radio productions and CD recordings he has had regularly temporary jobs at the Karlsruhe State Theatre and with the State Symphony Orchestra of Saarland where he played in the Europian Premiere of "The First Emperor" by Tan Dun and the German Premiere of "Doctor Atomic" by John Adams.
He played in ensembles for example at the festival of contemporary music "ZeitGenuss" with pieces of Steve Reich and Luigi Nono.
Masterclasses in classical percussion (Franz Lang, Peter Sadlo, Kunihiko Komori, Momoko Kamiya, Marta Klimasara, Klaus Dreher, Matthias Schmit and Evgeniya Kavaldzhieva),
composition (Bernhard Lang, Anne Wellmer, Matthias Ockert, Annesley Black and Brigitta Muntendorf),
improvisation (David Friedman),
drumset pop (Benny Greb and Simon Phillips),
and percussion in pop music (Claudio Spieler)
gave him important inputs for his musical development.
Music education is one of his top priorities. Joyful he dedicates himself to the education of percussion students and supports young musicians.
Since 2013 he is teaching at the Music School Ettlingen. Among his students are national prizewinners in the competition "Jugend musiziert".
Copyright 2025 Manuel Geier