Simon Zimbardo’

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Simon Zimbardo (* 1971 in Kassel) is a German drummer and music teacher.

Live life
Simon Zimbardo studied percussion at the University of Kassel and the University of Music Mainz, where he graduated in 1998 with a diploma in jazz/jazz related music. Subsequently, he completed the study program “Popular Music” at the Hamburg University of Music and Theatre. He won several first prizes at the state and federal competition “Jugend jazzt”, both as a soloist and with the quintet “Naima” with Christian Weidner (sax), Christian Meyers (tp), Markus Horn (p) and Hanns Höhn (b). Concert tours for the Goethe-Institut and the German Music Council took him together with the Quintet to several countries in Europe and Southeast Asia.

Parallel to his studies he played in various ensembles, including in the quartet with Corinna Danzer and Martin Lejeune. As a drummer in the Hessian State Youth Jazz Orchestra, he was trained from 1993 to 1997 by lecturers such as John Clayton, Jiggs Whigham, Michael Küttner and Ray Brown and accompanied soloists such as Albert Mangelsdorff, Don Menza, Dee Daniels, Silvia Droste, Tony Lakatos, Randy Brecker, Bill Ramsey and Ack van Rooyen.
With the ensemble he performed throughout Germany as well as in Hungary, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Vietnam.

Together with bassist Hanns Höhn and pianist Markus Horn, he played in jazz symphonic and film music projects with Philharmonic orchestras from Germany, Hungary and Romania.

He drew further influences from masterclasses and encounters with Terry Bozzio, Peter Erskine, Jeff Hamilton, Udo Dahmen and Matt Wilson.

Simon Zimbardo’s musical focus lies in the area of big band, various jazz casts and the accompaniment of artists and ensembles live and in the studio. He played in numerous theatre and musical productions in major German cities. Between 1999 and 2005 he conducted the Darmstadt downtown big band, then other big bands in the Rhine-Main area. In Mainz he is the drummer of the m.s.schmitt-jazzorchester, which sets compositions and arrangements of saxophonist and arranger Martin Schmitt to music live and in the studio.

In 2006, the Seligenstadt organist and composer Thomas Gabriel wrote “Momo”, an abstract concerto in twelve pictures for church organ and drumset, which Gabriel and Zimbardo performed several times throughout Germany. A number of other joint projects, CD productions and premieres of Thomas Gabriel’s compositions followed.

Since 2008 Simon Zimbardo plays together with bassist Ralf Cetto in trio with Azerbaijani pianist and singer Aziza Mustafa Zadeh. Concert tours took the trio through Germany and to England, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Serbia, Cyprus, Austria, Turkey and Azerbaijan. During a tour of Europe in 2009, the trio performed at the Jazz Festival in Montreux. An ARD documentary about Aziza Mustafa Zadeh shows great