On March 18th 2017, saxophonist Victor Károly Fox gave his first concert with the band First Circle as part of the 7th PLUSHMUSIC Festival at LOFT.
Roger Kintopf (bass) and Felix Ambach (drums) also made their debut with us that evening; the three had previously won the Deutschlandfunk studio prize and the special prize from the German Jazz Union for their “outstanding compositions” at the Bundesbegegnung Jugend Jazzt, followed by the concert prize at the Eldena Jazz Evening, where Victor also won a soloist prize.
Surprising for us: after his first LOFT concert, Victor had to leave quickly to drive back to Seligenstadt – we wouldn’t have thought of it after the mature performance in this trio, but the next morning the 16-year-old had school again.
At that time, he was a junior student of our esteemed Claudius Valk in Mainz, after which he studied with Frank Gratkowski at the Cologne University of Music and Dance. In September 2022 he played his bachelor’s concert entitled Mumble Jazz at the LOFT (sensational with Asger Nissen on alto saxophone and the rhythm section Tobias Fröhlich & Jan-Einar Groh), the recording of the concert has been released as Breezy – MUMBLE JAZZ on Boomslang Records. Victor is now also presenting his master’s degree concert at the LOFT, where he has already played around 30 concerts.

The fact that he was immediately an asset to the Cologne jazz scene is proven not only by his discography and the range of his musical work, but also by his extraordinary interest in all kinds of music – including that of his colleagues: he was a guest at countless concerts, not only at LOFT. And for such a young musician, he already has an extraordinary biography: in addition to the awards already mentioned, he was the youngest musician in the Bundesjazzorchester and has played in numerous concerts with the most established musicians. The trio First Circle, which has existed since 2014, continued until 2019, but Victor was also immediately present on the Cologne scene: with the Pascal Klewer Bigband he was involved in the albums Chasing Memories (2019), Live at KHG (2023) and Live at Loft (2023), and performed with Peter Brötzmann, Evan Parker, Kit Downes, Pablo Held and Christian Lillinger, among others. He also has duos with pianist Darius Heid and his “old companion” Roger Kintopf, and is part of Roger’s quartet Structucture, the first winner of the recording project prize initiated by LOFT in 2019 – the debut album resulting from this prize was released in May 2020 on Double Moon Records. He can also be heard on two albums created at LOFT by drummer Mathieu Clement’s sextet (Coming Home 2023, Ruma 2025) and on the LOFT album Aurora by the Finn Wiest Quintet
Being able to follow a career from its earliest beginnings is one of the privileges of running LOFT and its listeners. We are looking forward to the further development of Victor Fox – we will not lose sight of him.