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Sylvie Courvoisier
Pianist-composer Sylvie Courvoisier, a Brooklyn-based native of Switzerland and winner of Germany’s International Jazz Piano Prize in 2022, has earned renown for balancing two distinct worlds: the deep, richly detailed chamber music of her European roots and the grooving, hook-laden sounds of the avant-jazz scene in New York City, her home for more than two decades.
Few artists feel truly at ease in both concert halls and jazz clubs, playing improvised or composed music. But Courvoisier — “a pianist of equal parts audacity and poise,” according to The New York Times — is as compelling when performing Stravinsky’s epochal Rite of Spring in league with new-music pianist Cory Smythe as she is when improvising with her own acclaimed jazz trio, featuring bassist Drew Gress and drummer Kenny Wollesen.
Then there are her ear-opening collaborations with such luminaries as John Zorn, Wadada Leo Smith, Evan Parker, Ikue Mori, Ned Rothenberg, Fred Frith, Andrew Cyrille, Mark Feldman, Christian Fennesz, Nate Wooley and Mary Halvorson.
In music as in life, Courvoisier crosses borders with a creative spirit and a free mind; her music-making is as playful as it is intense, as steeped in tradition as it is questing and intrepid. NPR’s Kevin Whitehead has encapsulated her art in an evocative way: “Some pianists approach the instrument like it’s a cathedral. Sylvie Courvoisier treats it like a playground.”
Courvoisier’s newest ensemble — the atmospheric, shape-shifting Chimaera — will be touring across Europe from July to September 2024, performing music from Courvoisier’s double-disc Chimaera album, released in November 2023 via the Swiss label Intakt. The virtuoso touring group features Christian Fennesz on electric guitar/effects, Nate Wooley on trumpet and Gress on double-bass alongside a pair of percussionists: Nasheet Waits on drums and Wollesen on both drums and vibraphone. Courvoisier has played notably in the Big Apple and beyond with Wooley and Waits, while Gress and Wollesen are the longtime partners in her aforementioned trio. Chimaera’s wildcard is Fennesz, the Austrian artist known for his ambient-textured work both solo and in league with such figures as the late, great composer-pianist Ryuichi Sakamoto and avant-pop icon David Sylvian, as well as with the ECM-affiliated band Food. The lineup on the Intakt recording of Chimaera is subtly different than the touring group, as it features two trumpets instead of two percussionists, with Wadada Leo Smith in place of Waits. Regardless of the differences in instrumentation, the Chimaera project presents a reverie of sound unlike any Courvoisier has crafted before: spacious and shimmering, mysterious and mesmerizing.
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Sylvie Courvoisier, Mary Halvorson: Bone Bells
by Vincenzo Roggero
Tra i massimi interpreti dei rispettivi strumenti, Sylvie Courvoisier e Mary Halvorson sono le punte di diamante di due generazioni che si incontrano sul terreno comune dell'improvvisazione, del minimalismo sonoro, del prevalere delle idee sulle esibizionismo celebrativo. A partire dalla confezione dell'album, privo di note di copertina, ma arricchito da una grafica (opera di Miles Okazaki) a metà strada tra graffiti art e neoespressionismo alla Jean-Michel Basquiat, con la pudica concessione di una foto a colori delle ...
Continue ReadingSylvie Courvoisier Mary Halvorson: Bone Bells
by Mike Jurkovic
Guitarist and sound-chaser Mary Halvorsonnever fails to hypnotize. Add the equally hypnotic pianist Sylvie Courvoisier and beauties like Bone Bells materialize to shift your news-exhausted consciousness to greater possibilities. Bone Bells does that. Bone Bells does it often. Once again each woman is determined to investigate every tangent of the sonic atmosphere. Willfully and excitedly breaks down the margins of contemporary chamber and avant-garde, Courvoisier (who gets along rather well with many musical mavericks, notably Wadada Leo Smith ...
Continue ReadingSylvie Courvoisier and Mary Halvorson: Bone Bells
by John Ephland
Tonally, these two artists offer what feels and sounds like an ideal fit. Pianist Sylvie Courvoisier and guitarist Mary Halvorson are in no hurry with , their third collaboration as a duo, the title coming from a passage in the novel Trust, by Herman Diaz. There is gentleness mixed with a kind of dreaminess, interspersed with what feel like spasms of either delight or some sudden fury of exposition that must find an outlet. And like all duo ...
Continue ReadingMary Halvorson & Sylvie Courvoisier: Bone Bells And The Art Of Surprise
by Lawrence Peryer
Today, the Spotlight shines On two artists who've taken the piano-guitar duo to bold new places. Sylvie Courvoisier and Mary Halvorson . These two players come from different worlds: Sylvie from European classical traditions and Mary from experimental jazz guitar circles. But when they join forces, something magical happens. Their music shifts from delicate to eruptive, structured to spontaneous, with a shared musical language they've built over nearly a decade. The record Bone Bells (Pyroclastic, 2025) ...
Continue ReadingSylvie Courvoisier and Mary Halvorson: Bone Bells
by Jack Kenny
Sylvie Courvoisier and Mary Halvorson! The combination of two such unconventional musicians is both rewarding, challenging and unnerving. The two women are radical disruptors. Their visions and their ambitions are vast. Their range of influences is dizzying. Their creativity seems limitless; their refusal to be conventional is absolute. Even the mechanics of their instruments are subject to their inventiveness. The extent of their comprehensive insurrection is not really acknowledged. Does their gender obscure it? In many ways, their ...
Continue ReadingSylvie Courvoisier and Mary Halvorson: Bone Bells
by Troy Dostert
Given that Sylvie Courvoisier and Mary Halvorson are two of the most distinctive instrumentalists in the world of jazz and improvised music, it is a particular treat to hear them together in a duo configuration, where the intimacy of the setting allows for a fuller appreciation of their virtuosity and empathetic sensibilities than is sometimes possible on their more ambitious group projects. Courvoisier's pianistic prowess can be astonishing, but on recordings like 2023's Chimaera (Intakt Records) it was her arranging ...
Continue ReadingSylvie Courvoisier and Mary Halvorson: Bone Bells
by Dan McClenaghan
Pianist Sylvie Courvoisier and guitarist Mary Halvorson are the boldest of musical artists. Bold and uncompromising, each with distinctive voices coming from different places. For Courvoisier, it is the classical music world and European chamber music that she mixes with the sounds of avant-garde jazz. Halvorson started out early with the violin, until the sound of the guitar of Jimi Hendrix pulled her into the freer and more hard rock realm. This move picked up momentum when she sat in ...
Continue ReadingJazz this week: Sean Jones, Sylvie Courvoisier & Mark Feldman, Roseanna Vitro, and more
Source:
St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
Even as presenters prepare to go into full holiday mode, it's going to be be a busy week for jazz and creative music in and around St. Louis, with visits from several major touring musicians in the next few days, plus special seasonal performances from a number of local favorites. Let's go to the highlights... Wednesday, December 2 Trumpeter Sean Jones returns to Jazz at the Bistro for the first evening of a four-night engagement in which he'll be recording ...
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StLJN Saturday Video Showcase: Sylvie Courvoisier and Mark Feldman
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St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
This week, let's peruse some videos of pianist Sylvie Courvoisier and violinist Mark Feldman, who are coming to St. Louis to perform in a concert presented by New Music Circle on Friday, December 4 at The Stage at KDHX. The UK newspaper The Guardian in 2013 called them “both fine-tuned virtuosi whose projects sound like edgy classical chamber-music as much as improv or jazz." Courvoisier is a Swiss native, trained as a classical pianist with an early interest in traditional ...
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Sylvie Courvoisier & Mark Feldman Play National Concert Hall, Dublin, May 29
Source:
All About Jazz
Pianist Sylvie Courvoisier and violinist Mark Feldman will play the Kevin Barry Room at the National Concert Hall, Dublin, May 29. Sylvie Courvoisier is a pianist, composer, sideman and band leader. Born in Lausanne, Switzerland, Courvoisier moved to New York in 1998 and has lived in Brooklyn since that time. Courvoisier has led several groups over the years and has recorded over 40 records for different labels, notably ECM, Tzadik and Intakt records. She has performed and recorded with John ...
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Sylvie Courvoisier - Mark Feldman Quartet - To Fly to Steal (Intakt)
Source:
Master of a Small House
Partners in both music and in life, pianist Sylvie Courvoisier and violinist Mark Feldman share the marquee on their latest collaboration. Drummer Gerry Hemingway and bassist Thomas Morgan aren't just along for the ride and receptive to a deep rapport, the four create music of superlative communication and cohesion. Their configuration invites immediate chamber associations and much of the interplay leans closer to classical than jazz in general cast, but extemporaneous expression remains an integral element with starched-collar propriety left ...
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Cecil Taylor + 2: Mark Feldman & Sylvie Courvoisier Oct. 12 in Chamber Jazz Series
Source:
Kim Smith Public Relations
Kaufman Center Presents Chamber Jazz Series
CECIL TAYLOR + 2 MARK FELDMAN & SYLVIE COURVOISIER Merkin Concert Hall, Thursday, October 12, 2006 at 8:00pm
“...Cecil Taylor wants you to feel what he feels, to move at his speed, to look where he looks, always inward. His music asks more than other music, but it gives more than it asks." - Whitney Balliett
At 77 years of age, CECIL TAYLOR continues to stun audiences with ...
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"...That her music is as aesthetically beautiful as it is strange and mysterious is only further testament to her prowess as a composer. That this trio plays her music as if it has been creating it from the air is nothing short of remarkable. Abaton is Courvoisier's crowning achievement thus far, and this group points her firmly forward in a direction where everything is still possible, demonstrating that there is something new under the sun in classical music and improvisation. Perhaps Abaton is the great moment of 2003 for new classical music." —Thom Jurek, All Music Guide "Courvoisier's playing is jaw-dropping at times, and there's an extended passage that features her working both inside and on the keyboard of the piano interacting with Rainey and the others in subtle combinations, and working up to a terrifying free jazz piano freakout that could make a person faint!" —Michael Anton Parker, 2005 "This highly original and new music has it all: razor-sharp edges, sounds of a thousand dancing needles, thundering power arising from deeply yawning chasms, mystic fluorescence throughout, calmness combined with a mysterious kind of moving." —Henning Bolte, 5/2007 "Dans un autre pays que la Suisse, elle serait adulée comme une des plus importantes plumes musicales de son temps
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Esmerelda
From: Bone BellsBy Sylvie Courvoisier
Golden Proportion
From: Searching for the Disappeared...By Sylvie Courvoisier
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