Rudy Kronfuss

Rudy Kronfuss (22.10.1951 - 5.2.2022) was born in Vienna/ Austria as the second child of a very musical family. Raised with a certain classical music background he started playing the guitar at age 13, became very interested in rock music (WHO,HENDRIX) and formed his own band when he was 17. Since his teenage days he loved composing music while using his band as a musical testing ground. In his early twenties a few of his songs had received airplay at the main Austrian radio station. When touring Holland with a group called "NOSTRADAMUS" in 1974 he decided to stay in the Netherlands. Starting with the jazz/ rock band "FONTEIN" his musical interest expanded to traditional jazz and modern fusion. Then he also joined the bigband "LAST MOMENT" and started with his own Jazzbands ("EILEEN FISS AND QUARTET RUDY KRONFUSS"). In 1984 he succesfully completed his six years study of the jazz guitar at the Royal Conservatory in the Hague. Since then he started to teach at "GLOBE" the Central Music School of Hilversum/ Holland. During this period he performed in and wrote for his own bands ("THE ELECTRIC GUITAR CORPORATION", "THE TOUCH","FRIENDLY N.T.T."). The highlights then were jazz festivals and radio appearances in the Netherlands. England, Spain and Germany. In the late eighties he was involved in a few projects with film music, wrote for saxophone quartets and also chose to continue his studies. 1994 was the year when he received his degree of composition/ arrangement at the Conservatory of Rotterdam under the guidance of Bob Brookmeyer. Because of his influence he developed to create connections between the so called classical jazz and contemporary styles - which can be heard in his compositions for bigband. In 1998 he contributed the music for a dutch musical about L.J. COSTER and has been quite active in the field of producing as well. He won the first prize in an annual big band composition competition in Austria. Rudy has recorded 2 CDs with Jimi Hendrix covers and 3 CDs dedicated to Jimi besides his own music. Rudy plays a lot of Hendrix tribute concerts all over Europe with his own band and as a solo artist. He has been involved in many projects to promote Jimi´s music - on radio, television, contributing to books and magazines and films. He even finished a few songs that Jimi could not complete in his lifetime, which are presented successfully on music videos.