crima

03 / Biography

The person
behind the music.

Christian Maurer has been drumming since childhood, learned the guitar at twelve, and discovered keyboard instruments at fourteen, when he also began composing and singing. After graduating from a classical conservatory and completing an additional degree in jazz studies, his repertoire expanded to span jazz, pop, chanson, Latin American music, electronic music, contemporary classical music, and music for film and games.

For many years, he worked primarily as a highly respected sideman for numerous international artists, both as a keyboardist and drummer. Productions featuring his work have appeared on German television (Arte, ZDF, 3Sat), radio (SWR, HR, Radio Swiss Jazz), on DVD, and on numerous CDs. He also worked for the theatres of Mannheim and Heidelberg, and concert tours have taken him to France, Italy, Belgium, Spain, Austria, Portugal, and Switzerland.

After 20 years of traveling from gig to gig, mental exhaustion forced him to shift his focus, and he became a high school music teacher. During this time, he was finally able to dedicate more time to composing and producing under his stage name, crima. Unfortunately, after another ten years, he also had to give up teaching because the effects of a late-diagnosed neurodivergent disorder became increasingly difficult to mask. So Christian concentrated fully on his work as a composer...