Dennis Sekretarev was born into a musical family in Kharkiv, Ukraine and grew up since age 4 in Frankfurt Main, Germany. When he was 7 he started learning the violin and the piano and from age 8 till 14 he was singing in the children’s choir at the Frankfurt Opera.
At age 14 he begann to play the trumpet and learn about Jazz. At 16 he composed his first Jazz composition.
From 2004 – 2009 he was a member of the Hessen Youth Jazz Orchestra and went on tour to Russia, Japan, Romania, France and Lithuania. He also played on two CD productions with the band that featured artists such as Claudio Roditi, Herb Geller, Joe Gallardo, Jiggs Whigham, Jan Wessels and others.
From 2006 – 2012 he acquired a Masters degree in Music at the renown Amsterdam Conservatory.
In 2010 he received the working grant Jazz from the city of Frankfurt for his work as a Jazz composer.
Dennis has also studied with world renown Jazz artists such as Terell Stafford, Dick Oatts, Bruce Barth, Jon Faddis, John Abercrombie and Doug Weiss.
In 2011 he performed at the North Sea Jazz Festival as member of the Concert Big band of the Amsterdam Conservatory.
From 2013 – 2018 Sekretarev was active on both the Frankfurt and the Amsterdam Jazz scenes.
In Frankfurt he worked with the Christoph Spendel Quartet and in Amsterdam he co lead the Avante-Punk Quartet named “Morgan Freeman“. The band played concerts in Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Berlin and went on tour multiple times to Lithuania where they also performed at the 2015 MAMA Jazz Festival in Vilnius.
In 2015 Dennis performed at the Hessische Jazz Podium in Frankfurt alongside pianist Volker Engelberth.
In 2016 „Morgan Freeman“ released its debut album „Blessed Virgin Marry’s Face-to-Face Encounter with the Divine Bullshit“ and in the same year the Band earned the publics prize and the prize for best composition for Sekretarev’s composition „A Gde Kruzhechka Nu I Skazechka“ at the Tremplin’ Jazz Award in Avignon, France.
From 2016 – 2018 Sekretarev was performing in free improvised settings in Amsterdam with musicians such as John Dikeman, Onno Govaert and Jasper Stadhouders.
From 2018 Sekretarev is living again in Frankfurt Main where he is active in the local music scene. He went on tour in Germany, Austria and Switzerland with the popular Junk Band „Botticelli Baby“ from Essen. In 2024 he released two albums: one with his Frankfurt based Band DNS JAZZ and the second under his own name with a group of musicians from Amsterdam featuring Eran HarEven on guitar, Onno Govaert on drums, Uldis Vitols on bass and Andrius Dereviancenko on saxophone.
Dennis also worked with pianist Joel Homes and bassist Julius Peter Nitsch from Berlin. On multiple occasions he played concerts with Saxophone giant Tony Lakatos and in July 2024 he played a concert featuring his original compositions with saxophone luminary Wayne Escoffery from New York City.