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Michel Reis

About Me

Jazz Pianist and Composer Michel Reis was born in Luxembourg in 1982. Classically trained from the age of 8, he started to become more and more interested in Jazz and improvised music after having heard his fathers recordings of Duke Ellington and Erroll Garner. At the age of 14, Michel decided to enter the Jazz Class of the “Conservatoire de la Ville de Luxembourg”, where he studied Jazz Piano with Belgian pianist and composer Kris Defoort, Harmony, Theory with Luxembourgian trumpet player and film composer Gast Waltzing and classical piano with Serge Bausch.

After completing his studies at the conservatory in Luxembourg, Michel moved to Boston to study at the Berklee College of Music on scholarship, earning a Bachelors Degree in Jazz Performance and Jazz Composition. His teachers were Joanne Brackeen, Danilo Perez, Frank Carlberg, Ed Bedner, Hal Crook and Greg Hopkins.

Michel Reis released his first album as a leader for WPR (Waltzing-Parke Records) in 2005, featuring Michael Oien on the bass and Dennis Frehse on drums. As a sideman, Michel appeares on the album “Fables of Lost Time”, released by the band Largo for Warner Jazz UK; “Stop Requested” by the Alex Terrier Quartet, “Half a Year in Half an Hour” by the Holger Scheidt Quartet, and on “Static” with the Bjorn Wennas Group. Michel Reis performed extensively in throughout Europe, USA and Japan, with his own Trio, the Nir Naaman Quartet, the Alex Terrier Quartet, High Groovin, Gast Waltzing and Largo, Didier Lockwood and the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, as well in duo an solo settings.

Michel was awarded the 4th place at the First Moscow Competition for Jazz Perfomers (Piano) in 2005, and in 2006, he won the 2nd price at the Montreux Jazz Solo Piano Competition.

In March 2009, Michel Reis released his second album as a leader entitled Fairytale, consisting of original compositions in a piano / saxophone duo setting. The album features Aaron Kruziki on the saxophone.

Michel just graduated with a Masters of Music Degree in Jazz Piano from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, under the tutelage of Danilo Perez, Ran Blake and Frank Carlberg.

Quotes: Michel Reis is a very exceptional pianist and composer. -Joe Lovano / Jazz Saxophone

Michel Reis is a musician of outstanding talent, discipline and seriousness. -Danilo Perez / Jazz Pianist and Composer

...Another trio led by a pianist, Michel Reis, tempered its impressionism with rhythmic suspense. -New York Times, January 2007