Caspar van Meel is a dutch bass player, arranger and composer living and working in Germany. He is known as a versatile and solid player securely grounded in the jazz-tradition while playing with ,an ear to the future‘. Before turning to music full-time van Meel received his masters degree in Arts & Culture with an emphasis on philosophy. However, went on to study music full-time with WDR-Big Band bassist John Goldsby at the Folkwang University in Essen (DU) where he received his masters degree in music. In 2014 he got a GVL-Stipend and was invited to the prestigious Workshop for Jazz and Creative Music at the the Banff Centre, Canada where he worked with a.o. Steve Coleman, Vijay Iyer, Jeff Tain Waits, Reggie Workman and Marcus Gilmore. As a bandleader with the Caspar van Meel Quintet he was award winner of the Future Sound Competition and the Jazz Preis Ruhr, as a co-leader he received the Jazzwerkruhr Preis with Trigonon and as a sideman he was finalist of the Dutch jazz Competition with the Mike Roelofs Band. The Quintet released their debut CD 'On the Edge' in 2020. In 2022 van Meel will release an album with arrangement for Jazz Sextet of the music of Erik Satie feat. a.o. Ryan Carniaux, Denis Gäbel and Franz von Chossy. Van Meel has also worked with the WDR Big Band, Philip Catherine, Götz Alsman, Gerd Dudek, Pablo Held, Denis Gäbel and Ryan Carniaux and played at festivals like the North Sea Jazz Festival, WDR Jazz Night and the Leverkusener Jazztage.