Paul Andrew

'Paul Andrew' Hofer-Bottomley, born on September 12th 1995, was raised in a musical environment by parents who are both classical musicians. He graduated from high school in Freiburg, Germany in July 2014. He had taken piano lessons since he was 4 years old, first from Joschi Krüger and later from Nina Schlichting. He first started playing the saxophone when he was 10 years old, taking lessons with Mike Schweizer. Shortly before his graduation from high school he switched to teacher and saxophonist Jürgen Hagenlocher for one year and, once he graduated, went straight on to studying Jazz/Pop Saxophone Performance in Mannheim, Germany, where he took lessons from Jürgen Seefelder. In his semester abroad in 2017 he took lessons from Rowney Scott (member of historically famous ‚Orkestra Rumpilezz‘) at the Federal University of Bahia UFBA in Salvador, Brazil. 

Paul Andrew has been playing in ensembles and bands since he was 11 years old, first accompanying classical soloists on the piano and later on the saxophone as frontman of various bands. He won the soloist prize of the German competition ‚Jugend Jazzt BW‘ when he was 16 years old with his quartet ‚All Colours‘. He has been a member of the Funk/Soul Band FATCAT since 2013, with which he has performed headliner shows at Montreux Jazz Festival (CH) or Fusion Festival (DE) or played as supporting act for names such as Jamie Cullum, Chaka Khan or Anastacia. He just recorded his fourth CD with the band. Since 2017 he has been member of the band  Flowin Tension, founded in Salvador, Brazil by drummer Christoph Müller. Paul Andrew founded the duo Brazulka with guitarist Tarcísio Santos in 2017 and went on their first Germany tour in autumn 2018, where they filled jazz clubs like Donau 115 in Berlin, Germany. In 2018 he founded his project ‚Silk & Steel‘, which is a nonet accompanied by a rhythm section and a string quartet. Paul Andrew wrote all arrangements for this project to record his first solo CD in February 2019. Just a few months later, the project won the contest 'Playground BW' by the Jazzopen festival Stuttgart, to play a support show for the famous Austrian band Mnozil Brass.