Acclaimed pianist-composer Sullivan Fortner, winner of the 2026 Gilmore Bell Jazz Artist Award, has won the GRAMMY Award for ‘Best Jazz Instrumental Album’ for Southern Nights at the 68th GRAMMY Awards on February 1, 2026. Released on February 14, 2025, via Artwork Records, Southern Nights showcases Fortner’s artistry at its peak, in the company of the great Peter Washington on bass and Marcus Gilmore on drums. This award represents Fortner’s third career GRAMMY win and his fifth nomination.
Fortner is the recipient of The Gilmore’s inaugural 2026 Larry J. Bell Jazz Artist Award, the largest single gift ever dedicated solely to a jazz artist. Fortner received $300,000 in support of his musical and career goals over the next four years. Mirroring the internationally renowned Gilmore Artist Awards for classical pianists, the Larry J. Bell Jazz Artists Awards provide some of the most generous financial support given in the musical arts. The Jazz Awards program was established in 2022 with an $8.8 million gift to The Gilmore’s endowment and is named for Kalamazoo businessman Larry J. Bell who founded Bell’s Brewery in 1985. Both the Bell Artist and Bell Young Artist Awards are presented every four years.
Sullivan Fortner will perform two programs during the 2026 Gilmore Piano Festival, April 30–May 10, 2026, in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He will kickstart the Festival on April 30, 2026, aka International Jazz Day with an intimate solo performance on acoustic piano, Fender Rhodes, Hammond B-3 organ, and more. Closing the Festival on May 10, 2026, Fortner will bring his trio, as well as sensational guests, Cecile McLorin Salvant, and famed trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire. Tickets are available at TheGilmore.org.
As a solo leader he has issued Aria (2015), Moments Preserved (2018) and Solo Game (2024) to critical acclaim, the latter receiving four-star reviews in DownBeat and France’s Telerama Magazine. In 2025, he released his trio recording Southern Nights featuring Peter Washington and Marcus Gilmore. Winner of the 2024 DownBeat Critics Poll for Rising Star Jazz Group: Sullivan Fortner Trio, the prolific artist has enjoyed creative associations with Wynton Marsalis, Paul Simon, Diane Reeves, Etienne Charles and John Scofield; his frequent and longtime collaborators have included Ambrose Akinmusire, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Stefon Harris, Kassa Overall, Tivon Pennicott, Peter Bernstein, Nicholas Payton, Billy Hart, Gary Bartz, Chief Adjuah and the late Roy Hargrove.
Playing solo or leading an orchestra, Fortner engages harmony and rhythmic ideas through curiosity and clarity. Coming up in New Orleans, he began playing piano at age seven, earning his Bachelor of Music from Oberlin Conservatory and Master of Music in Jazz Performance from Manhattan School of Music (MSM). A champion of mentorship, Fortner has offered masterclasses at MSM, New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA), Purdue University, Lafayette Summer Music Workshop, Belmont University and Oberlin Conservatory where he held a faculty position and subsequently returned as visiting professor of jazz piano.
Fortner has performed at Snug Harbor, New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts, Sweet Lorraine’s and The Jazz Playhouse in New Orleans, and Jazz at Lincoln Center, Jazz Standard and Smalls Jazz Club in New York City. He’s appeared at Newport, Monterey, Discover, Tri-C and The Gilmore Piano Festival. In 2019, Fortner brought his band to the historic Village Vanguard for a week-long engagement he would reprise in 2020 as a virtual performance during lockdown. His notable studio contributions include work on Etienne Charles’s Kaiso (Culture Shock, 2011), Donald Harrison’s Quantum Leap (FOMP, 2010), and Theo Croker’s The Fundamentals (Left Sided Music, 2007).
Fortner’s artistry preserves the tradition and evolves the sound. He seeks connections among different musical styles that are at once deeply soulful and wildly inventive. Both his works and his insights have been featured in culture drivers from The New York Times to The Root. Further accolades include the 2015 Cole Porter Fellowship awarded by the American Pianists Association, Leonore Annenberg Arts Fellowship, the 2016 Lincoln Center Award for Emerging Artists, the prestigious Shifting Foundation Grant in 2020 for artistic career development and the 2024 Western Jazz Presenters grant, which allowed him to tour the west coast with his trio. Fortner is a Steinway Artist.
Quote from Sullivan Fortner
“What an amazing surprise this is,” he reflected. “Thank you all so much. All praise and glory first go to God for the gift of music, the gift of creating it, and the gift of being able to share it with people. To Marcus Gilmore and Peter Washington, you are amazing. Thank you so very, very much. I’m so honored to share this award with you. To the entire jazz community, both listeners and performers at large, thank you all for being an inspiration and a support. Let’s continue in the lineage and in the spirit of our masters, and let’s continue to be stewards of this music.”Fortner is the recipient of The Gilmore’s inaugural 2026 Larry J. Bell Jazz Artist Award, the largest single gift ever dedicated solely to a jazz artist. Fortner received $300,000 in support of his musical and career goals over the next four years. Mirroring the internationally renowned Gilmore Artist Awards for classical pianists, the Larry J. Bell Jazz Artists Awards provide some of the most generous financial support given in the musical arts. The Jazz Awards program was established in 2022 with an $8.8 million gift to The Gilmore’s endowment and is named for Kalamazoo businessman Larry J. Bell who founded Bell’s Brewery in 1985. Both the Bell Artist and Bell Young Artist Awards are presented every four years.
Sullivan Fortner will perform two programs during the 2026 Gilmore Piano Festival, April 30–May 10, 2026, in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He will kickstart the Festival on April 30, 2026, aka International Jazz Day with an intimate solo performance on acoustic piano, Fender Rhodes, Hammond B-3 organ, and more. Closing the Festival on May 10, 2026, Fortner will bring his trio, as well as sensational guests, Cecile McLorin Salvant, and famed trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire. Tickets are available at TheGilmore.org.
About Sullivan Fortner
For more than a decade, 3x GRAMMY Award-winning pianist Sullivan Fortner has been stretching deep-rooted talents as a pianist, composer, band leader and uncompromising individualist. The acclaimed artist and educator out of New Orleans received international praise as both a key player and producer for his collaborative work on The Window, alongside Cécile McLorin Salvant subsequently awarding him his first GRAMMY for Best Jazz Vocal Album in 2019. He also earned a 2023 GRAMMY nomination for his provocative arrangement of “Optimistic Voices/No Love Dying” from her 2022 release Ghost Song. The 2025 GRAMMY for Best Jazz Performance was awarded to Samara Joy featuring Fortner for their song “Twinkle Twinkle Little Me”.As a solo leader he has issued Aria (2015), Moments Preserved (2018) and Solo Game (2024) to critical acclaim, the latter receiving four-star reviews in DownBeat and France’s Telerama Magazine. In 2025, he released his trio recording Southern Nights featuring Peter Washington and Marcus Gilmore. Winner of the 2024 DownBeat Critics Poll for Rising Star Jazz Group: Sullivan Fortner Trio, the prolific artist has enjoyed creative associations with Wynton Marsalis, Paul Simon, Diane Reeves, Etienne Charles and John Scofield; his frequent and longtime collaborators have included Ambrose Akinmusire, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Stefon Harris, Kassa Overall, Tivon Pennicott, Peter Bernstein, Nicholas Payton, Billy Hart, Gary Bartz, Chief Adjuah and the late Roy Hargrove.
Playing solo or leading an orchestra, Fortner engages harmony and rhythmic ideas through curiosity and clarity. Coming up in New Orleans, he began playing piano at age seven, earning his Bachelor of Music from Oberlin Conservatory and Master of Music in Jazz Performance from Manhattan School of Music (MSM). A champion of mentorship, Fortner has offered masterclasses at MSM, New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA), Purdue University, Lafayette Summer Music Workshop, Belmont University and Oberlin Conservatory where he held a faculty position and subsequently returned as visiting professor of jazz piano.
Fortner has performed at Snug Harbor, New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts, Sweet Lorraine’s and The Jazz Playhouse in New Orleans, and Jazz at Lincoln Center, Jazz Standard and Smalls Jazz Club in New York City. He’s appeared at Newport, Monterey, Discover, Tri-C and The Gilmore Piano Festival. In 2019, Fortner brought his band to the historic Village Vanguard for a week-long engagement he would reprise in 2020 as a virtual performance during lockdown. His notable studio contributions include work on Etienne Charles’s Kaiso (Culture Shock, 2011), Donald Harrison’s Quantum Leap (FOMP, 2010), and Theo Croker’s The Fundamentals (Left Sided Music, 2007).
Fortner’s artistry preserves the tradition and evolves the sound. He seeks connections among different musical styles that are at once deeply soulful and wildly inventive. Both his works and his insights have been featured in culture drivers from The New York Times to The Root. Further accolades include the 2015 Cole Porter Fellowship awarded by the American Pianists Association, Leonore Annenberg Arts Fellowship, the 2016 Lincoln Center Award for Emerging Artists, the prestigious Shifting Foundation Grant in 2020 for artistic career development and the 2024 Western Jazz Presenters grant, which allowed him to tour the west coast with his trio. Fortner is a Steinway Artist.
About The Gilmore
Created in 1989 to honor the legacy of businessman and philanthropist Irving S. Gilmore, The Gilmore is the premier institution in the United States dedicated exclusively to commissioning, presenting and awarding extraordinary piano artistry. The Gilmore has presented 16 piano festivals, commissioned over 40 new works for piano, and awarded over $3 million as part of its internationally renowned Gilmore Artists Award for both classical and jazz pianists. Based in Kalamazoo, Michigan, The Gilmore hosts its annual (previously biennial) Gilmore Piano Festival April 30-May 10, 2026, and continues to impact the lives of thousands of area children and adults through its year-round community engagement and music education programs including summer camps, music therapy, and much more.For more information contact AMT Public Relations.
