Beat's Scrapbook
The early years
Beat Zimmermann, the 1967-born Swiss started his musical career receiving classical piano lessons starting at the age of 10 after having played the recorder for 4 years and showing significant musical talent. He soon was able to play some rather difficult pieces on the piano, such as pieces from Moussorgsky's "pictures at an exhibition" and Tchaikovsky's "seasons" or Beethoven Sonatas. Hoping to be able to join the conservatory of music at the age of 20, he finally pursued another professional career in aviation/air traffic control because he felt a lack of support from his family to become a professional pianist.
Becoming pro
Beat however started the neo-prog rock band "Carol" in 1986 with a friend. They reached the 1988 Swiss final (8 out of over 300 bands) of the Yamaha-live-for-Tokyo contest. In 1994, Beat left Carol to pursue other musical goals. In 1996 he started to study at the Swiss Jazz School, which later became the Bern University of Arts, where he studied Piano as a main and Drums as a second instrument in the study program, which today is a Bachelor of Arts. He played in various Jazz bands as a freelancer, he also had his own trio with Lorenz Beyeler on Bass and Martin Stadelmann on Drums. In these years as a professional musician he totalled the number of playing around 80+ gigs per year. With the Big Band of the University of Bern he had the opportunity to play festivals in Jamaica, France and Italy.
Addicted to fusion
Fusion was Beat's main interest so he founded the 5-piece band "Actual Proof" with drummer Martin Stadelmann and fellow student André Rossier. Actual Proof played fusion tunes written by Dave Weckl, Steps Ahead, Al Jarreau, Scott Henderson, John Scofield and the likes. In the mean time the band had to be renamed to "Proof Coalition" as some other artist started to use the name "Actual proof". The band is however currently not active.
For his own educational institute in aviation, Beat produces instruction videos, for which he also writes and performs the music in his recording studio.
Playing with well-known artists
In the last couple of decades, apart from some appearances as a sideman for Ronan Keating, the Bellamy Brothers, Matthias Reim, DJ Ötzi and Nik P., Beat wasn't seen playing on a stage as often as in the past but he was active in his studio producing music.
New album "every picture tells a story"
In 2024, Beat has teamed up with some world class musicians and is currently working on a prog-rock album titled "every picture tells a story" with nine own compositions. The tentative release date is mid-2025.