Originally from Ludwigshafen, Germany, Tobias Frohnhöfer began playing drums at age 7 and quickly developed his chops playing jazz and other styles. A recent graduate of the Mannheim University of Music and Performing Arts, he has already toured throughout Europe, Africa, and Asia, while appearing on over ten albums as a drummer and vibraphonist. His successes in music school earned him the Baden-Württemberg-Exchange scholarship, granting him the opportunity to come to the U.S. for a year, where he enrolled at Wesleyan University, studying jazz with Pheeroan ak Laff and Jay Hoggard and South Indian percussion with David Nelson, as well as spending time in New York. Informal was recorded at the culmination of that year and demonstrates the honing his voice as a player, composer, and bandleader. His drum sound displays his myriad influences, from Elvin Jones, Tony Williams, Roy Haynes, Billy Hart, and his mentor Christian Scheuber to younger players like Johnathan Blake, Bill Stewart, and Eric Harland, but his conception has moved from derivative to distinctive.
