Born in 1972, Florian studied piano and composition in Cologne, London and New York. Since 1998 he has released 18 albums featuring both small and large ensembles and written over 350 commissioned compositions and arrangements for large jazz ensembles. He received the prestigious Thad Jones Composition Competition Award in 2000 and the WDR Jazz Composition prize in 2006. His commissioned works include pieces for the German NDR and WDR big bands, the Netherlands Metropole Orchestra, the BBC Big Band, the Danish Radio Jazz Orchestra, RTE Irish Radio Orchestra, and Sydney Mothership Jazz Orchestra and artists including David Liebman, John Scofield, George Duke and Gary Burton. SNJO regulars will remember Ross’s first commission " A Day in the Life" in 2002 and his brilliant imaginative arrangements of Giant Steps, Crepuscule with Nelly and Humpty Dumpty for SNJO’s Coltrane, Monk and Corea tributes. In addition to writing and touring Ross teaches piano and composition at the Hochschule fur Musik und Tanz in Cologne as well as Conservatorium van Amsterdam.