sylvie courvoisier/Mary Halvorson duo
SYLVIE COURVOISIER piano
MARY HALVORSON guitar
Sylvie Courvoisier (piano) and Mary Halvorson (guitar) perform music from their latest release, Bone Bells (Pyroclastic Records, March 2025). Their third album as a duo and an eagerly awaited follow-up to 2021’s Searching for the Disappeared Hour, Bone Bells presents eight new intricate compositions: four by Sylvie and four by Mary. The duo’s telepathic interplay and ferocious intensity is on full display in this magical set of music
Albums
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Bone Bells
Pyroclastic Records, 2025
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SEARCHING FOR THE DISAPPEARED HOUR
Pyroclastic Records, 2024
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CROP CIRCLES
Relative Pitch Records, 2017
REVIEWS
BONE BELLS
Selwyn Harris, Jazzwise
"A purposeful, gripping dialogue is heightened by both the flexibility and inventive responsiveness of their dual roles… one of the most inspired and kaleidoscopic contemporary jazz pairings in recent times.”
Stewart Smith, The Wire
“Sylvie Courvoisier and Mary Halvorson take their duo language to new heights of fluency and sophistication.”
Mike Hobart, Financial Times, Download PDF
“Bone Bells, their third album, expands their multidisciplinary approach into a vibrant juxtaposition of expressive emotions, playful asides and intimate moments. Traditions are referenced, boundaries stretched and the musically odd coheres into familiar shapes. The result is a richly rewarding set that projects the power, finesse and emotional reach of an established working band…. thrilling, fascinating album."
Troy Dostert, All About Jazz
“An unqualified success, much like the album as a whole, which never ceases to captivate and charm.”
Stéphane Ollivier, Jazz Magazine, CHOC, May 2025
At the crossroads of contemporary chamber music and post-jazz, the pianist and the guitarist deepen a dialogue that, with Bone Bells, stands out as one of the most essential of our time... Bone Bells takes us through the thousand twists and turns of a strange and dreamlike universe — a striking blend of intelligence, virtuosity, and intuition.A truly outstanding record.
John Sharpe, Point Of Departure
”An unexpected and thoughtful culmination to a dazzling exhibition.”Eduardo de Simone, MasJazz Digital
SEARCHING FOR THE DISAPPEARED HOUR
Giovanni Russonello, The New York Times
“Sylvie Courvoisier and Mary Halvorson are contemporary improvisers who approach abstraction from two different angles: Courvoisier as a pianist at the bridge between free jazz and European classical music, and Halvorson as a deconstructive guitar improviser, strongly affiliated with (for lack of a better term) the Brooklyn jazz scene. Their second duo album, ‘Searching for the Disappeared Hour,’ was a chance to mine the jazz canon for inspiration while finding ways to playfully disrupt each other’s style.”Jerome Wilson, All About Jazz
2021 BEST RECORDINGSWill Layman, PopMatters
2021 TOP JAZZ ALBUMS
“The simpatico is now utter and a wonder. Both are players in the New Jazz world who value strong writing and how it connects to improvisation that is not defined or bounded by sets of chord changes.”Nate Chinen, NPR
2021 TOP 12Bill Meyer, The Wire/Magnet
2021 TOP 10 JAZZ AND
IMPROV. RECORDINGSJerome Wilson, All About Jazz
★★★★★ ”Courvoisier and Halvorson have a chemistry that brings out something new in both of them. The sounds they make here are both familiar and alien at the same time. This is a totally involving and, in its own warped way, beautiful session of music.”Keith Black Winnipeg, Free Press
★★★★ ½ “The synchronicity between these two move what is unapologetic experimental music into the realm of sheer musical beauty. They take turns heading to the musical edge, while the other holds the foundation. The result is always thoughtful, surprisingly accessible and perhaps unexpectedly melodic.”Robert Iannapollo, New York City Jazz Record
”This is a duo whose members, while like-minded musically, are different enough to surprise and entertain both the listener and each other.”Dave Sumner, Bandcamp
“On piano, nobody quite sounds like Sylvie Courvoisier, nor, on guitar, like Mary Halvorson. Their individual voices are distinctive, which is why there’s all kinds of intrigue when they come together in a recording studio.”Richard Williams, The Blue Moment 2023
CROP CIRCLES
S. Victor Aaron, Something Else
”The duo released the album Crop Circles in 2017 via Relative Pitch Records. Dusted and All About Jazz gave the disc glowing reviews, as did several European publications. And DownBeat set up its four-star review of the album by describing Courvoisier and Halvorson as “two of New York’s most distinctive improvisers,” going on to praise the music’s “deft, interactive intimacy” and the duo’s way of “coming together and then drifting apart with unspoken grace… always serving the cumulative sound but remaining very much themselves.” "The affinity heard between the two is something that can't be taught... This meeting of two of the brightest minds on the edgier side of jazz today produces music that’s astonishing both in its fluency and ceaseless ingenuity.”