SYLVIE COURVOISIER TRIO
SYLVIE COURVOISIER piano
KENNY WOLLESEN drums & Wollesonics
DREW GRESS bass
COMING TOUR NOVEMBER 12–28, 2027
“One of the most creative pianists in the downtown scene, and a long time collaborator of Mark Feldman, Ikue Mori and many others, Sylvie combines a brilliant technique with a wild imagination that straddles classical, jazz, improvisation and more. Featuring the dynamic rhythm section of Kenny Wollesen and Drew Gress, the music combines the best of improvisation and composition in the classic piano trio format. Three years in the making this is an essential project that highlights an exciting new musical world.” — John Zorn
photo @ogata_photo - 2026
SYLVIE COURVOISIER CHIMAERA
SYLVIE COURVOISIER piano
NATE WOOLEY trumpet
CHRISTIAN FENNESZ electronics
DREW GRESS bass
KENNY WOLLESEN drums
NASHEET WAITS drums
EURO TOUR MARCH 10–21, 2027
‘CHIMAERA' is Sylvie Courvoisier’s new ensemble. The compositions for this band, originally commissioned and premiered as a quintet at the Sons d’Hiver Festival in Paris on February 17 2022, are inspired by the work of the painter Odilon Redon; a universe of symbolism, dreams and fantasy.
The core of this new sextet is her trio (created in 2013) with Drew Gress on double bass and Kenny Wollesen on drums. For some of these pieces, Kenny is adding his magic touch on the vibraphone.
Christian Fennesz, wizard of electronic music, has the mission of transforming the atmosphere, creating ambient and meditative sounds. He functions as an acrobat, creating tension to provide a fragile instability and balance for the group.
photo Veronique Hoegger 2024
SYLVIE COURVOISIER SOLO
Sylvie Courvoisier piano
Sylvie Courvoisier’s solo work spans a gamut of sonic expression both vast and personal. This is evidenced by the performance she gave in Bremen, Germany before she was presented with the 2022 German Jazz prize in the International piano category:
Sylvie’s musical language draws equally from her deep engagement with the 20th century modernism of composers like Messiaen and Ligeti and creative improvisors like Cecil Taylor and Thelonious Monk. Her fluency working inside the piano with non-invasive techniques and preparations is unmatched and forms an evocative counterpoint with her masterful touch on the keyboard. Of course these aspects are evident in her ensemble work with her long acclaimed trio and the recent piano duo collaboration - Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and her Spectre d’un songe with Cory Smythe. However, nowhere are they more in evidence that in her solo playing. She moves fluidly through her ever growing book of compositions, presented both complete and in fragments and adds sections of open improvisation where anything might occur. Stark, peaceful beauty and startling violence can occur in surprising proximity. At the same time she always seems to weave recurring elements through these forays tying varied sections together to feel ‘of a piece’.
photo @ogata_photo - 2026
SYLVIE COURVOISIER AMALTHEA
SYLVIE COURVOISIER piano
PATRICIA BRENNAN vibraphone
THOMAS MORGAN acoustic bass
DAN WEISS drums
Brooklyn-based, Swiss-born pianist and composer Sylvie Courvoisier’s ace foursome Amalthea — formerly known as Poppy Seeds — will embark on its second tour of Europe from April 24 to May 10, 2026, supporting the group’s debut studio album, to be recorded for Pyroclastic Records in spring 2025. This quartet features one of today’s great bass and drum combinations, Thomas Morgan and Dan Weiss, as well as rising vibraphonist Patricia Brennan. Reviewing the band’s concert at JazzFest Berlin last year, All About Jazz said: “The quartet allowed full rein to Courvoisier’s propulsive drive without sacrificing the complexity and risk-taking that makes her work so enthralling. Brennan’s playing involved unisons, solos of sparkling notes grounded by a deeper clang, or subtle pitch-bending electronics. Morgan and Weiss meshed both in jazzy pulse and discontinuous meter. But Courvoisier remained an engaging focal point, deploying rubbed piano sighs, poltergeist knocks and flamboyant crashes alongside passages of astounding feeling.”
Along with interpreting the music of composers from Stravinsky to Zorn, Courvoisier leads a long-running jazz trio and plays in duos with such luminaries as Wadada Leo Smith and Mary Halvorson. Brennan, in addition to recording under her own name, has worked with such notables as Vijay Iyer and Michael Formanek. Morgan is one of the most in-demand bassists in progressive jazz, valued by the likes of Bill Frisell and Tyshawn Sorey. Another virtuoso on the New York scene, Weiss leads his own bands (from trio to large ensemble) and collaborates with such peers as Miles Okazaki and Rez Abbasi. Although a lineup of piano, vibraphone, bass and drums has been familiar to jazz fans since the days of the Modern Jazz Quartet, Courvoisier and her colleagues in this foursome will be exploring new possibilities of textural/harmonic richness. This is reflected in the band name Amalthea, inspired by the moniker for one of Jupiter’s moons (a rare object that radiates more energy than it receives from the Sun) as well as by the name of Zeus’s nurturing foster mother, a figure associated with the cornucopia of abundance. — Bradley Bambarger
photo @ogata_photo - 2026