Tania Giannouli

Greek pianist, composer, improviser and bandleader. She studied classical music (Piano Soloist and Composition diplomas) and Agriculture (MS on Food Technology, AUA). She explores jazz as the most creative music form and regularly employs improvisation in her practice. She makes jazz of the kind where improvisation is just the starting point and somewhere out there - or something deep inside - is the aim. Ιnspired by many different traditions and influences, her music and interdisciplinary projects span an impressive range of styles - a creative and borderless amalgamation of the global today’s reality. 

Establishing her very own voice, embracing and transcending occidental and oriental spheres on her soulful path of creation and dedication to the essentials of moving sound. Her genre-defying "open sound language" is often described as lyrical, inspired, complex, eclectic, intoxicating and highly original. As the Korean magazine Jazzspace has written: “This music invites the listener to dream of eternity.”

Her imaginative, explorative musical nature has led to four unique recording collaborations, all released on New Zealand's foremost art-music label, Rattle Records: Forest Stories (2012, with Portuguese wind player, Paulo Chagas), Transcendence (2015, featuring works composed for her Tania Giannouli Ensemble), Rewa (2018, a critically acclaimed, entirely improvised collaboration with traditional Maori instrumentalist, Rob Thorne) and In Fading Light (2020, an unexpected trio with trumpet player Andreas Polyzogopoulos and oud player Kyriakos Tapakis). All four albums received wide international acclaim and were included in numerous ‘Best of’ lists, with Transcendence cited as one of the most important Greek albums of the decade according to many Greek media.

She has performed at several venues and festivals in Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, the Czech Republic, Turkey, Italy, Slovenia, Romania, Skopje, Greece (among others: Jazzfest Berlin- Berliner Festspiele, Madrid International Jazz festival, Enjoy Jazz festival, Flagey Piano Days, Brussels Jazz Festival-Flagey, Rudolfinum Prague, Bergamo Jazz festival, Bimhuis, Ars Musica, November Music, Onassis Stegi, Skopje Jazz festival, NFM Wrocław, Piano Days Copenhagen, Ystad Winter jazz festival, Cerkno Jazz festival, Munsterland festival, Handelsbeurs, Jazzahead, Zomer Jazz Fiets tour, Borusan Sanat, Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre, Catania Jazz festival, Synch festival, Thessaloniki Concert Hall and more), but also in special projects like the demanding site-specific concert "634 minutes inside the volcano", where she- together with 14 more musicians- improvised for more than 10 hours inside the crater of Nisyros' island active volcano.

She is much involved in mixed media and her music for video, documentaries and film has travelled to many festivals, museums, galleries and Biennales worldwide. Her concert music has been performed by the Camerata/Armonia Atenea String Orchestra, Dissonart Ensemble, the Athens Youth Orchestra and the Galaxy String Quartet.

Tags

Album Review

Transcendence by Eyal Hareuveni

Live Review

Enjoy Jazz and More 2020

Festivals Talking

Enjoy Jazz Interviews: Tania Giannouli

“This music invites the listener to dream of eternity.” - Jazzspace (Korea)

"Tania Giannouli might not be signed to ECM yet, but she would surely be welcomed inside their sonic universe"- Jazzwise (UK)

"Challenging and astonishing at the same time …A mind-blowing concert unlike any other. Giannouli is here to shake up jazz again. She is not only an exceptionally good pianist…She will emphatically leave her mark on music (and certainly not only within jazz) in the coming years.’ Written in Music Dick Hovenga (NL)

" Greek pianist Tania Giannouli, is a musician in her prime!” - All About Jazz (USA) "With this solo Giannouli manifested herself as a very unique and forceful voice. It strengthened the ties with the growing audience she has built in recent times. She proved to be a daring female leader from the European periphery that restructured and melded old and new, known and unknown, classical and improvisational elements in vivid and captivating ways. Not a typical jazz cat but an energetic and decisive player with an open and versatile musical mind."- All About Jazz (USA)