SK Invitational
He is a producer, composer, bass player and leader of one of the most exciting big bands of our times. Stephan Kondert, a.k.a. SK, born and raised in Salzburg, Austria, started his biggest music project to date in 2006, when the opportunity to play a grand-scale concert arose with the aim of creating something new, refreshing and never heard before. So SK gathered and unifed the solid core of his musician friends on stage; altogether 16 people, who played a legendary concert with brand new instrumental tracks, specially composed for this occasion. SK experimented with Drum n Bass, Dancehall and Hip-Hop beats, to work out diferent ways to present the full range of the big band sound. The history of SK Invitational had just begun, leading to their frst, self-titled Album, released in 2007.
The album got attention from rappers all over the world that acknowledged the originality of the sound of SK. Some of them became part of the upcoming second album “Raw Glazed”, which was nominated for the “Best Hip-Hop” Amadeus Award in 2010, became album of the week on the radio stations FM4 and Superfy, and got a great deal of airplay all over the world. Besides that, the band got hired by some of Europe’s best independent and major label artists for recordings, performances and production, for example for the album “Wir” of legendary Munich-based Rap crew Blumentopf (two live recordings) and the live album “sweet16” of Austrian Hip-Hop band Texta.
Alongside their studio work, the complete band carried out four successful tours with several feature guests through Germany, Hungary and Austria, and played a lot of festivals in Europe, for example Donauinselfest, Freakwave, Linzfest, Ottensheim Openair and Popfest Vienna.
After 6 intense years of touring, producing and moving to NYC, Stephan Kondert fnished his third SK Invitational album, including features of rappers and singers from both the US and Europe, such as M.O.P., Homeboy Sandman, TY, Blak Twang, Edo G., Sadat X, John Robinson, J Hoard, Lylit, Horst Raimund and Baritone Mc Kenzie. “Golden Crown” is going to be released in February 2017 via Kopfhörer Recordings.
