Esben Tjalve grew up in Denmark where he played original music from an early age. He graduated from the RAM with Bachelor Honours in 2004 and later did a Master in Composition at the Guildhall School of Music. Since then he has composed and recorded music for Universal, Warner Bros., BBC4, BBC Radio Drama, BBC Cbeebies, theatre productions as well as the nominated film animation “Marriage of the Thames and the Rhine”and the highly acclaimed radio drama series called “The Great Scott” featuring David Tennant. He has collaborated with many fellow contemporary jazz musicians including Cecilia Stalin, Jasper Hoiby, Tim Giles, Toni Kofi, Ernesto Simpson, Henrik Jensen and Andre Canniere and worked with several musicians outside of jazz like Lucinda Belle, Raf Vilar, Ghanean rapper M3nsa, world music artist Muntu Valdo and American Singer Kristina Train, with whom he played on Jools Holland In 2012. Lastly an album with his acclaimed six-piece “Red Kite” has been released on the indie jazz label F-ire. His band Red Kite is also due to release the album “Theory of Colours” with the label Jellymould Jazz in September 2019. This album features some of the finest jazz musicians at present: Fulvio Sigurta - trumpet, Ross Hughes - bass clarinet, Hannes Riepler - guitar, Jasper Høiby - bass and Tim Giles - drums.
“Tjalve’s writing is intelligent and consistently interesting with rich colours and textures but there’s an engaging spikiness about the music too that seems to draw its inspiration from contemporary American jazz developments”. - The Jazz Mann
"Tjalve's accessible but knotty playing pulls in every listener". - Alyn Shipton