Hypnagogue

The bass player Alex and the jazz guitarist Cooper first met in 2013 at a jazz session in Leipzig. Coming from different cultural and musical backgrounds, the two found together pretty quickly and discovered their enthusiasm for the same kind of music in various sessions. In the need of a drummer the two finally found Ivan in January 2014, which Alex knew from different musical projects beforehand. Shortly after that the three were playing their first sessions together as a band and quickly developed their very own style. In march 2014 they found a name for their band - „Mr. Dohnary“ - and started to write their own tunes. 

Cooper:
Cooper first started playing the guitar very early at the age of 9 and quickly found it's style through transcribing the arrangements of guitar legends like Steve Vai and Joe Satriani. At the age of 17 the young talent started studying jazz guitar at the Berklee Music College with John Finn and Wayne Krantz, achieving his bachelor degree at the age of 21. After that he moved to New York and played his first sessions with legends like Steve Lukather, Stanley Clarke and Tal Wilkenfeld. Coming back to his homecountry, he later started working in Peking as a studio guitarist for 1,5 years with various pop singers, playing with free jazz guitarist David Michelle and in a metal band called „Sirene in Flames“. At the age of 24 he moved to Germany and studied at the Jazz Institute in Berlin with the american jazz guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel and in Weimar with Frank Möbus. Later on in Leipzig, he played with Walther Neumann and Christian Röver and finally met Alex with whom he founded the jazz band „Mr. Dohnary“. Shortly after that, the two found a drummer completing the lineup and playing their first tour around China in spring 2014.

Ivan:
The start of the serious musical experience of Ivan can be attributed to the enrollment in the Saint-Petersburg music school. He was 15 years old at the time. As a part of the curriculum he learned and performed on xylophone, vibraphone and drumkit durng three years of education. During the last year, he started to love and learn jazz, mostly by himself at first, because the education at school was built around classical music. Then he found a teacher and spent two more years learning as much as he could about funk, jazz and latin music – the rhytmical  part of it,  of course. During his time im Saint-Petersburg he played in various indie bands (pop, rock, metal, jazz) performing in local clubs and bars. He played over 100 concerts there, but the most noticeable, the most fun experience to him was the street jamming sessions with his friends, when playing the whole day on the street under the sunshine. After moving to Leipzig, Ivan started looking for a band here and found himself playing in a good mix of latin music and hard rock in „ExtraNote“. Also, in this band he met Alex. Unfortunately, the two performed only several concerts together before he quit and joined „Het Parool“. Alex was still playing in „ExtraNote“, but was also involved in the new project. They played electronic sets in Berlin, Nürnberg and Saint-Petersburg together and after some time „Het Parool“ ceased to exist and Ivan joined „The Agenda“, whose essence was rock music with an indian flavour. He enjoyed performing rock music as much as jazz or electronic. Currenty, they are playing local gigs in Leipzig. Beside long-term big projects he also occasionally  plays small ones and really enjoys the Leipzig jam sessions. There are quite a lot of them there every week, also including going out, meeting new people and speaking to them with the music. Now he is part of „Mr. Dohnary“: Odd signatures, fast paced changes, unexpected variations in dynamics and three cool guys flowing on one wave.

Alex:
Alex' live started right away with a strong connection to music almost from scratch. His musical career began when he first learned the flute in the church choir at the early age of 6. Right after that he expanded his musical horizon with learning the keyboard and playing the trumpet in an orchestra at the age of 12, also including his first tours to Brazil, Serbia and Montenegro and of course all around his home country Germany every weekend. With 16 Alex discovered his enthusiasm for the only instrument which should accompany him from now and probably for the rest of his live: the bass guitar. Playing in different rock bands at first he developed not only his performance but also his very own style, which finally became manifest four years later in various forms of Jazz-, Funk- and Blues-Bands. At the age of 21 he became a constant member of his first funk band „Latin Street Ensemble“. Three years later, Alex met Cooper Yuan, finally finding another musical enthusiast to look up to and to creatively collaborate with. The ambitious bassist and the professional jazz guitar  player were forming their band „Mr. Dohnary“ in 2013.