Biography

Aleksei Saks (1971) started his music studies with the band leader and trumpet player Miron Litvak in Pskov (Russia). After moving with his family to Estonia he received his academic degrees in classical trumpet from the Georg Ots Tallinn Music College and the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre.
He has wide experience playing classical and baroque music with Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, Tallinn Brass, the Latvian Chamber Orchestra.

During the period 1998-2008 he was active as both manager and member of the Estonian Dream Big Band, collaborating with such jazz music stars as the New York Voices, Dennis Rowland, Randy Brecker, Ray Anderson, Freddy Cole and others. Since the middle of the 1990s Aleksei Saks collaborated and recorded with many Estonian musicians and bands including Hedvig Hanson, Uno Loop, Tõnu Raadik, Ivo Linna, Dave Benton, Genialistid, Smilers, Modern Fox. His activity in pop-music as lead trumpet player included the legendary dance group „2 Quick Start“ and the band of latvian-russian pop-star Laima Vaikule.

Taking some lessons from the notable Finnish trumpet player Esko Heikkinen at the end of 1990s he started to develop a flexible playing style, maintaining a fine sound and endurance using the full range of the instrument. At the same time Aleksei was the distributor of ECM Records in Estonia, and was able to study the sounds of Scandinavian jazz trumpet players and different ways of mixing a classical music background with the art of improvisation.
His solo record O Grande Amor, played on fluegelhorn and featuring a jazz quartet and string orchestra, was nominated for the Estonian Music Awards 2003.

Together with Robert Jürjendal he founded the duo called UMA in 2007, as an attempt to create a new combination of electro-acoustic guitar and horn sound.
During the period 2008-2013 UMA released 4 records featuring various artists (Markus Reuter, Robert Rich, Andi Pupato, Tim Bowness, Guido Kangur, Iris Oja). In this duo Aleksei Saks plays trumpet and the very rarely used corno da caccia (hunting horn). UMA performed at numerous festivals and venues all across Europe.

Since 2010 Aleksei Saks worked in several projects with musicians of different backgrounds: Slow Electric (with Tim Bowness, Peter Chilvers, Robert Jürjendal), Memories of Machines (Tim Bowness, Giancarlo Erra), Five Seasons (Robert Jürjendal, Volkmar Zimmermann, Sara Fiil, Madis Metsamart) and Jon Durant, Joel Remmel.