Shuwei Cooper Yuan

Jazz guitar, China

Shuwei Cooper Yuan 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.

Since 2016 Shuwei Yuan came back to China to be the jazz guitar teacher in Xinjiang Arts University, he still always going back to Europe play with Till Brönner, Philip Maniez and many incredible jazz musicians.