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Alexi Tuomarila
Member Since: 2015 | Location: Helsinki | Page Views: 725 
About Me
Finnish jazz pianist and composer Alexi Tuomarila, Pori Jazz Artist of the Year 2025, leads a trio with Mats Eilertsen and Olavi Louhivuori and spent a decade in Tomasz Stańko’s bands.
Alexi Tuomarila is a Finnish jazz pianist, composer and bandleader whose music combines lyrical melodies, rich harmonies and rhythmic intensity. His compositions provide a framework for spontaneous ensemble interaction, balancing carefully shaped structures with the freedom of improvisation. In 2025, he was named Pori Jazz Festival’s Artist of the Year. For more than twenty years, Tuomarila’s trio with Norwegian bassist Mats Eilertsen and Finnish drummer Olavi Louhivuori has developed a distinctive shared musical language. Their recordings include Constellation (Jazzaway, 2006), Seven Hills (Edition Records, 2013), Kingdom (2017) and Sphere (2019) featuring guest trumpeter Verneri Pohjola. Kingdom received four stars in The Guardian, while Sphere won Finland’s Emma Award for Jazz Recording of the Year and received five-star reviews in BBC Music Magazine and Helsingin Sanomat. BBC Music Magazine also selected it as its Jazz Recording of the Month. On his latest album Departing the Wasteland (Edition Records, 2024), Tuomarila expands the trio’s sound with guitarist André Fernandes and guest horns. The album moves between intimate acoustic passages and expansive electric textures, bringing piano, synthesizers and guitar into dialogue. It was selected among Bandcamp Daily’s Best Jazz Albums of 2024 and received an Editor’s Choice distinction in the UK’s Jazzwise magazine. Tuomarila’s recent international performances include a US trio tour with an appearance at the Rochester International Jazz Festival in 2023, followed by trio performances in Japan in 2025. In 2026, he has performed across Europe with two ensembles: his trio with bassist Reuben Rogers and drummer Alessandro D’Anna, and his Departing the Wasteland quartet. Tuomarila’s compositional work extends from small ensembles to orchestral music. His concerto Between Dark and Light, written for symphony orchestra and the Alexi Tuomarila Trio, received its world premiere with Tapiola Sinfonietta at April Jazz in 2023. From 2007 to 2018, Tuomarila worked closely with Polish trumpeter Tomasz Stańko, touring internationally with several of his ensembles. Highlights included a week-long engagement at Birdland in New York and appearances at the ECM Festival in Shanghai, the TIM Festival in Rio de Janeiro and the San Francisco Jazz Festival. He appears on Dark Eyes (ECM, 2009), produced by Manfred Eicher. The album’s track Terminal 7 is featured in several seasons of the American television series Homeland. Alongside his trio, Tuomarila has led the Belgian-Finnish quartet that later became Drifter. The group’s album Flow (Edition Records, 2016) received four stars in The Guardian. He has also recorded two albums with his band Lithium for the Dutch label Challenge Records. His current projects include D.O.P.A. with Timo Kämäräinen. The band released Vivid Dreams in 2024 and continues to perform actively. Tuomarila has played in Eero Koivistoinen’s quartet for thirteen years, recording three albums with the group, and has recorded four albums with the Manuel Dunkel Quartet. He also performs as a solo pianist and has collaborated with musicians including Kenny Wheeler, Joey Baron, Gerald Cleaver, Reuben Rogers, Jakob Bro, Rick Margitza, Jim Black, Bill Evans, Peter Erskine, Anders Jormin, Perico Sambeat, Reggie Washington, Eric Revis, Trygve Seim, Andre Fernandes, Tore Brunborg, Nelson Veras and UMO Jazz Orchestra. Tuomarila graduated with a Master of Music degree from the Royal Conservatory of Brussels in 1999, where he studied with pianist Diederik Wissels. His early international recognition included competition victories in Hoeilaart, Avignon, Monaco and Granada. Based in Helsinki, he combines performing and composing with teaching jazz piano and pursuing artistic doctoral research at the Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki.
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This page was last updated on 2026-10-18.
