許哲維 Zhe-Wei Hsu

我原本走的是另一條路。

新竹實驗中學、台大化工，然後成為工程師。那是一個安穩、體面、所有人都會點頭的選擇。後來我把它放下，去了比利時皇家布魯塞爾音樂院主修爵士電吉他，在那裡拿到碩士，也在 JazzStation、Sounds、Music Village 等場館演出。

回到台灣，我帶回來的不只是一紙文憑，而是一種聲音的偏好：偏向 ECM 的內斂與空間感，在意旋律怎麼呼吸，也在意聲音與聲音之間怎麼留白。我相信音樂不是炫技，而是選擇。每一個音、每一次停頓，都是一個決定。

現在我以演奏與創作為核心，遊走於當代爵士與自由即興之間，也在新竹教少數想把音樂想清楚的人。

這些年的現場多在台灣各地，從 Blue Note Taipei 的舞台，到新竹的咖啡館與書店，多半是二重奏或三重奏，有時帶著自己的原創計畫《結構與自由之間》與《風與線》，有時則是與來自瑞士、美國、德國的樂手即席對話。

I was on a different path.

Chemical engineering at National Taiwan University, then a job as an engineer: the safe, respectable choice everyone nods at. I left it and went to the Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussels to study jazz on electric guitar, earning my master's there and performing at venues including JazzStation, Sounds and Music Village.

What I brought back was less a diploma than a preference for sound: the introspection and space of ECM, how a melody breathes and how silence sits between notes. Music isn't about showing off. It's about choices. Every note, every pause is a decision.

Today my work centres on performing and composing, moving between contemporary jazz and free improvisation, and teaching a few players in Hsinchu who want to think their music through.

These years the playing has mostly been across Taiwan, from the stage of Blue Note Taipei to cafés and bookshops in Hsinchu, usually in duos or trios, sometimes carrying my own projects, Between Structure and Freedom and Wind & Line, and sometimes improvising freely alongside musicians from Switzerland, the US and Germany.