Christian Kögel is a musician, producer, and teacher working in the fields of jazz, singer/songwriter, free improvisation, Arabic music, and chamber music. He has been living in Berlin since 1990 and founded his own trio in the same year, with which he won several jazz prizes in Germany. He studied classical guitar at the Hochschule der Künste, Berlin, from 1990-1994 and electric guitar at the jazz department of the HdK, Berlin, from 1991-1996. From 1998-2000, he learned Oud and traditional Arabic music from Syrian Oud virtuoso Farhan Sabbagh.

Kögel performs and produces music in the fields of jazz, singer/songwriter, chamber music, and traditional Arabic and Afghan music, as a member of various Berlin-based bands (flexkögel, Paul Brody's Sadawi, Edward Maclean's Adoqué, Wood & Steel Trio, Mattar 4, Lauer Large, Marc Muellbauer's Kaleidoscope, Nasser Kilada & Ranin, Jazzanova live, Kempendorff/Lauer/Kögel, among others), as well as in regional formations (Jerry Granelli V-16, DJ Stinkin' Rich, Simon Fisk Trio, Safar (with musicians in Afghanistan), etc.), with whom he has released numerous CDs. Several tours have taken him to the USA and Canada, Russia, Israel, and, on behalf of the German Foreign Office, to Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, and Albania, as well as to Afghanistan (2013 & 2014). He has performed at jazz festivals in Ottawa, San Francisco, Halifax, New York, Iowa City, Vancouver, Montreal, and this year, among others, with Julian Priester and Jay Clayton at the Atlantic Jazz Festival in Halifax, Canada.