born in 1972. trumpet studies at folkwang hochschule essen and academy of music, cologne lessons with manfred schoof, markus stockhausen, roger zaks, andy haderer and laurie frink.
mainz developings concepts of improvisation on the trumpet dealing with extended techniques, elektronik and microtonality.
in 2001, he founded the ensemble realtime research with which he`s constantly crossing the borderlines of jazz, noise, new music and media art.
he was awarded the prize for improvised music/jazz of the city of cologne in 2001 and a special prize of the ministery of economy of nrw in 2008. His projects where funded by grants of kunststiftung nrw, ministry of culture in nrw, city of cologne, sk-stiftung kultur, staatskanzlei des landes nrw, ministry of education and science and bureau of foreign affairs, federal republic of germany