Highly acclaimed guitarist, multi instrumentalist, composer and producer Igor Osypov with his crunchy and distortedly liquid sound has become one of the distinct and impressive voices in jazz as well as indie-rock, hip-hop and fusion. His playing with “blood and guts”  brings a “fresh and complete concept” (allaboutjazz.com) to concert stages and clubs all over the world. 

 

As an artist he is standing at a complex crossroads where different worlds intersect. As a Ukrainian exiled in Berlin, unable to return home, he is obliged to negotiate different cultural and political identities, and as a forward-looking contemporary musician he chooses to negotiate the different genres of jazz, rock, electronica and other less easily defined traditions.

 

“A secret weapon from Ukraine” (Jazz Times), Igor earned his recognition by touring internationally and also recording with some of the greatest artists. Among those are Logan Richardson, Jason Lindner, Eric Harland, Nasheet Waits, Tech N9ne, Joe Sanders, Greg Hutchinson and others. All while developing his own band, and recording his debut (“I”, Unit Records, 2015) and sophomore (“Dream Delivery”, For-Tune, 2016, “No Past Human” Xjazz 2023, “Motherland 2K14” Whirlwind Recordings 2024) albums.

 

Both as a sideman and a band leader Igor took part in a number of major jazz festivals and events around the globe such as NPR Tiny Desk, Village Vanguard, Jazzahead, Copenhagen Jazz Festival, Montreaux Jazz Festival, XJazz and others. He won awards in many different contests in Europe such as Montauban Jazz, Smietana jazz guitar competition and Jazz nad Odra.  One of the albums that he has worked on as a part of Logan Richardson’s project “Blues People” has been listed under the top 3 jazz albums of 2018 by the New York Times. 

 

Igor has been developing his own unique multilayered style of playing whilst studying at the Jazz Institute Berlin with renowned musicians such as Kurt Rosenwinkel, John Hollenbeck, Gerard Presencer, Marc Muellbauer, Tino Derado, Wolfgang Köhler, Jörg Achim Keller and others. During his studying Igor was awarded with Deutschlandstipendium and JIB-Jazz-Preis der Karl Hofer Gesellschaft 2015. Shortly after his graduation as a Master of composition in 2019 Igor was granted the scholarship Elsa-Neumann Stipendium. Since 2020, Igor has been working simultaneously on two interconnected projects, both of which deal with the concept of Motherland in different ways. In 2022 he was granted with prestigious Stiftung Árvore in Switzerland. Currently teaching guitar at the Carl Maria von Weber Hochschule in Dresden.