Van Der Karsten

Van Der Karsten is the project of German artist and producer Nils Karsten, born in 1972 in Hamburg.

He began music very early: classical piano training from childhood, awarded numerous regional and national prizes, and at ten years old he started trumpet lessons at the Hamburg State Opera. This dual skill allowed him to perform as a keyboardist or trumpeter in various philharmonic orchestras and bands; he learned drums from the drummers in those ensembles.

He produced his first studio works from 1988. Positions at a large music store and at Steinberg gave him the experience to set up his own studio and focus on writing and production. He composed over forty tracks for fashion videos for Petra magazine and created music for TV and cinema commercials, notably for Dr. Oetker, Cinemaxx and Nivea.

Six years as a lightjockey at the Traxx nightclub in Hamburg, where he met his long-time friend Michael-Lee Bock (aka DJ Lee), shaped his musical sensibility and his understanding of club audiences.

Since 2000, a shared passion for trance and techno led to several collaborative projects, the most notable being Megara vs DJ Lee. Their first joint track, the vocal trance anthem Dance, became a club hit. The Apollo project also charted in single sales and entered DJ sets in the UK, Italy, Japan and Spain. The duo later signed with EMI with the energy trance anthem Full Intention.

Alongside his musical career, Nils Karsten has worked in strategic management within the audiovisual industry while continuing to compose and produce in his well-equipped studio. In 2018 he joined the Planet Punk Music label with the Van Der Karsten project.