Christos Asonitis was born in Athens-Greece on December 14, 1974. As a child and as a teenager he was drowned into rock music but he never thought that one day he would play a musical instrument. One day one of his classmates proposed him to make a rock band and everything began from that point on. At the age of 16 he bought his first drum kit and started playing with his friends making his first rehearsals and recordings.
From 1994 to 1999 he studied drums at the Conservatory of Filippos Nakas in Athens (Greek Department of Berklee College of Music). There, under the influence of his educator and drum mentor Spyros Panagiotopoulos, he listened to jazz music for the first time and his musical concerns were starting to be changed.
He made his first live appearances with the rock band Suddenly and in 1998 he joined the rock group of Petros Theotokatos. Together they played for three years all over Greece, made appearances on the Greek TV, participated in Rock Festivals such as Athens Rockwave Festival, 23th River Party Festival and recorded Theotokatos’ second album I Eleytheria De Nikietai (1999). He played also for the rock bands Lefkes Nichtes, Positron and Skies.
After many years as an independent professional musician (collaborations with Mario Frangoulis, Manos Lidakis, Dimitris Maramis, Vasilis Kazoulis etc.), he decided to dedicate his career to jazz and latin music.
From 2007 to 2012 he shared the stage with numerous musicians of the Greek jazz scene. At the same time he worked as a drum educator in conservatories and schools, as a clinician and workshop coach. He played together with Jazz On T.A.P, Yorgos Krommydas, Yiorgos Psihoyios, Miranda Verouli & Desafinados, Lito Voyatzoglou, Antenor Bogea, Free Time Quartet, Swinging Fish, Black Coffee, Fabio Cruz, Yannis Arzimanoglou performing in Greece, United Arabic Emirates, Cuba and Cyprus and recording studio albums. Among the recordings in which participated are O Grande Amor (2014) by Free Time Quartet featuring Miranda Verouli, Jazzium (2010) by Yorgos Krommydas and In Paris (2013) by Yiorgos Psihoyios. With the jazz project Jazz On T.A.P together with Nikos Terzakis and Yannis Papadopoulos he played intensively for four years and appeared in plenty of live clubs and concerts in Greece. The band released in 2012 its debut album Jazz On T.A.P with a live presentation at the Half Note Jazz Club in Athens.
His first musical experiences outside of Greece began in 2011, when he visited Rio de Janeiro in order to have classes for Brazilian rhythms. He was taught by famous Brazilian drummers-percussionists such as Marcos Suzano, Robertinho Silva, Kiko Freitas and Cassio Cunha. His acquaintance with Freitas changed his way of studying and interpetating music.
In 2011 and 2012 he traveled also to Cuba and stayed there for a total period of two months. During this time he attended in Havana master classes for percussion and drums in Cuban and Afro Cuban music, he met great musicians during concerts and he appeared in the local music scene of Havana participating in jam sessions. Great drummers taught him such as the legendary drummer of Irakere Enrique Pla, the professor of E.N.A. (Escuela Nacional de Artes) and author Jose Eladio Amat and one of the best Cuban drummers of the modern era Ramses Rodriguez.
In 2012 he moved to Munich, Germany. Very soon he made his appearance in the local music scene playing for the group of Colombian jazz guitarist Nicolas Delgado and for the quintet “Elena Baumann and Friends” with concerts in Germany and Russia. Since then he shared the stage with Alessandro De Santis (ITA), Marcio Tubino (BRA), Augusto Aguilar (PER), Cadu de Andrade (BRA), Peter Tuscher (DEU), Juan Jose Chuquisengo (PER), Chris Lachotta (DEU), Tizian Jotzt (DEU), Sandra Nahabian (ARG), Michael Hornstein (DEU), Götz Grünberg (DEU), Anton Berlev (RUS), Max Braun (DEU), Diego Riedemann (CHL) and many more.
In 2013 he began his studies for a master degree at the University of Music and Performing Arts of Munich (Master of Music/ Jazz Drums) under the guidance of Professor Werner Schmitt. He graduated in 2015 with excellent grades. Among his other teachers are Michael Keul, Jeff Ballard, Claus Hessler, Billy Hart, Ron Savage, Wolfram Winkel, Fotis Yiannopoulos, Kostas Anastasiadis and Efrain Toro.
In 2016 was invited by Gabriel Drums during the International Music Exhibition in Frankfurt am Main and gave a drum clinic about the “Cuban-diddles”, which he invented. During the summer of this year he made a tour in Cuba as a member of the Salsa Band of the University of Music and Performing Arts of Munich with concerts in Havana, Santiago de Cuba and Trinidad. In the same year he was credited on Jasmin Bayer’s debut album Summer Melodies, by the jazz record label Enja. Two albums followed The Green Unicorn (2018) and Merry Christmas Baby (2021).
During his studies in 2014 he formed his own group together with young musicians from Munich. He produced his debut album as a bandleader An Ode To The Light which was released by Timezone Records in 2018 along with Bastien Rieser (trumpet), Mark Pusker (alto saxophone), Maruan Sakas (piano) and Lorenz Heigenhuber (double bass). The album received excellent reviews in Germany and Greece. Interviews of Christos were hosted in the Greek press. The quintet promoted the album with live concerts in Germany and Liechtenstein.
In 2021 was released the album Rapsodia Cubana by Naxos World Music, which he recorded and co-produced with his wife, Cuban pianist Yamile Cruz Montero. It combines multiple references that draw associations between past and present, tradition and contemporaneity, classical universes and the worlds of popular music, all of which define the artistic vision that Yamilé Cruz Montero and Christos Asonitis created. “Rapsodia Cubana” features pieces of composers such as José María Vitier (1954), Ernán López-Nussa (1958), Andrés Alén (1950) and Aldo López-Gavilán (1979). All represent the broad spectrum of contemporary Cuban piano, and showcase the technical expertise of classical pianism, integrated with popular Cuban, Latin and North American genres.
He made a guest appearance in the album Acuarela (2022) of Chilean singer Cristina Galvez Madrid and he was credited on the debut album What Will Remain (2023) of Christoph Lehner Quintet. In the same year German nominated trumpet player Vincent Eberle joined his quintet and working process was started on Christos’ new album.
Christos endorses Gabriel Drums, Vic Firth Drumsticks and Istanbul Mehmet Cymbals. He currently teaches drums and percussion at his drum school Musikstudio X&Y in Munich.
Concert highlights:
Infinity Basel Festival 2023, Museum of Fine Arts of Cuba 2011 and 2016, Dubai World Music Festival 2011, 4th International Jazz Meeting Kostas Kouvidis 2011, Tinos Jazz festival 2009 and 2011, 1st Jazz Marathon Athens Festival 2011, Athens European Jazz Festival 2010, Limassol Music Festival 2007, Rematia Jazz Festival 2012, Russian Tour with Elena Baumann & Friends 2014, Brazilian Days in Munich 2014, KLANGfest Munich 2016, Bayerisches Jazzweekend Regensburg (2016-2019), Cuban Tour with the HMTM Salsaband (2016), Ahrenshooper Jazz Festival 2018, Half Note Jazz Club, Jazz Club Unterfahrt Munich, Birdland Jazz Club Neuburg, b-flat Jazz Club Berlin, Jazzkeller Frankfurt, Jazzstudio Nuremberg, Jazzmission Schwäbisch Gmünd, Cave 61 Jazz Club, Tangente Jazz+.
