Christof May studied at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, Netherlands. He graduated in 1998 with a Masters Degree in Jazz Saxophone and a Bachelors Degree in Classical Clarinet. A versatile musician, his main focus is on jazz and related kinds of improvised music as well as the contemporary classical genre.
Besides having recorded two CDs with Susanne Abbuehl for the legendary german Label ECM he has done numerous concerts and recordings with musicians and ensembles such as David Liebman, Michel Portal, Trygve Seim, Amina Figarova, The Jazzmeteors, Nimbus, Wolfert Brederode, Erik Ineke, Jarmo Hoogendijk, Ruben van Rhoon, Gully Gudmundsson, Caroline de Rooij, Jakob Roved Quartett.
With the dutch radio Big Band and Orchestra “Metropole Orchestra” he played under conductors as Vince Mendoza and Mike Abene, accompanied musicians as Kenny Werner and Bob Malach and recorded CDs with a.o. Terry Bozzio and Yuri Honing.
He does regular appearences with these groups at international jazzfestivals and clubs, such as PDXjazz (Portland/Oregon), Capetownjazzfest (South Africa), ccfmoz (Maputo/Mocambique) North Sea Jazz Festival (The Hague), Bimhuis (Amsterdam), Jazz-no-Jazz (Zurich), Umea (Sweden), Leverkusener Jazztage (Germany), Luchtbal (Antwerp), Celimontana (Rome), Banlieues Bleues (Paris), Vicenza (Italy), Cully (Switzerland), Molde (Norway), Montreal Festival (Canada), Jazzaldia (San Sebastian/Spain) and Parc Floral Festival (Paris). As a classical musician, Christof May performed with a.o. the symphony orchestras of Aachen, Krefeld and Duisburg and the dutch eurythmy ensemble ZILT mainly contemporary works.
Christof has also composed and improvised music for different kinds of stage performances. With guitarist Florian Zenker and DJ Cut Nice, he created the music for the Dutch Dance Company "Djazzex" & the "010 boys" and performed a.o. at the Lowlands Festival 2001.
Together with Eurythmist Magali Müller-Peddinghaus, he composed the performance “ROT”, commissioned by german painter Brigitte Wiegmann. The cooperation resulted life performances and video expositions, a.o. in the Museum am Ostwall, Dortmund.
His latest project, MAYGUS, is a group inspired by the music of Miles Davis in the seventies as performed life and on his record “Dark Magus”.