Birdland

Here’s a nice registration of a new Big Band arrangement by Eric Miyashiro of the famous tune called ‘Birdland’. We played this at the 2019 Trumpet Party and besides Eric playing his part there’s a great solo by Florian Wempe. And the amazing Wim Both playing lead-trumpet. Hope you enjoy it!

HOMME FATALE on vinyl!

Yes, we did it, we arranged it, and now it’s available: the album HOMME FATALE on VINYL! We’re very proud to have this album also available as a real record, sounding awesome and looking good. So for everyone who has a turntable, find us after our gigs, because we’ll have it with us all the […]

VinnieVibes @ North Sea Jazz

Last summer we played the North Sea Jazz Festival in the Hague with VinnieVibes – the energetic band of Vincent Houdijk. The gig was awesome, there was a huge line to get into the venue we played, and the responses were amazing. SO – GOOD NEWS: we recorded the whole thing, and it’s being mixed […]

Trumpetparty

In a few weeks time the next Trumpet-party is due – an incredible night with a bigband and some intense and impressive trumpet playing. This year the great Wayne Bergeron (Maynard Ferguson Big Band and the soundtrack of The Incredibles) is going to be the featured artist, and I can tell you that’s gonna be […]

New Album ‘Homme Fatale’

Woohoo! We worked on it for quite a while, because we wanted it to be really good – the new album of Ratzke with the songs of Homme Fatale. And it’s ready, and I think it’s really good! Man, the hours we put in it to get all the sounds right, and the instruments I played! […]

Update on touring

Oh, and I didn’t update you for a while on the touring, so just to give you an idea: I can still be regularly found at the Bimhuis with the Konrad Koselleck Big Band (our steady gig there); we’ve been really busy touring Homme Fatale (Ratzke) around the world (taking it from Amsterdam to Berlin, […]

Jury of the international Big Band contest Hoofddorp

This summer I had the privilege to be a member of a jury in the international Big Band contest of the Meerjazz Festival in Hoofddorp. And what a treat it was! The level of Big Band playing was very high in the competing bands, they’re all playing great arrangements, and it’s such a thrill to […]

Ratzke on tour

While finishing off two years of playing Starman (New Zealand will be the last one to enjoy it next month) we’ve been very busy writing and arranging for the new Sven Ratzke show called Homme Fatale. Actually the last two months have been completely filled with rehearsing, making sheets, writing songs, throwing them away, rearranging […]

Ratzke’s Christmas Night

The month of December we’re touring the Netherlands with Ratzke’s Christmas Show. Is there anything better than to spend a musical night in the theatre around Christmas with somebody who’s rather with his audience than at home around those days?! In every town there’s a special guest, from Eric Vloeimans and Claron McFadden to Lavinia […]

New look

So, I just refreshed the looks of this website a bit – about time most of you would probably say 🙂 While in the meantime it’s so easy to do so with WordPress. Anyway, also some of the content got updated, and I’ll fix some more in the coming time. Let me know what you […]