Gerd Baier, born 1961 in Heidelberg, Germany, discovered music by introducing himself to the
piano at the age of three. He received a high quality training in classical music from age fife to
fifteen and at that time a starting extraordinary career as a classical pianist seemed to be obvious.
However when he came in touch with contemporary music he became so enthusiastic that he
decided to break with traditions and devote himself to jazz and modern music. An autodidact since
then he developed a highly independent style where the merging of different musical directions is
constitutive and a specific way of handling harmony and rhythm shows up in his compositions.
Gerd Baier is engaged in different projects, the most part working with his own compositions of
Modern and Contemporary Jazz. He performed in important Jazz places all over Germany and other
European Countries as well as on international Jazz Festivals. With his formation NorthSide Quartet
he played on the major European Jazz Festival “Jazz an der Donau” 2005 alongside Al Jarreau and
David Sanborn. Since 2005 he introduces his new compositions in New York on a regular basis.
On February 2009 he appeared in the New York Times, in a review about „Project Perpetuum“, a
collaboration of Baier / Gutbrod and dancer Emma Desjardins, a member of the Merce Cunningham
Dance Company, New York.