Profile
Sylvie Courvoisier is a pianist, composer and improviser. Born in Lausanne, Switzerland, Courvoisier moved to New York in 1998 and has lived in Brooklyn since that time.
She has led multiple groups and has been commissioned to write music for concerts, radio, dance, and theater. Courvoisier has recorded nine albums as a bandleader, 25 as a co-leader, and over 30 albums as a side-person, notably on ECM, Tzadik and Intakt Records.
Courvoisier has performed and recorded with John Zorn, Wadada Leo Smith, Joey Baron, Ellery Eskelin, Nate Wooley, Fred Frith, Yusef Lateef, Tim Berne, Joëlle Léandre, Erik Friedlander, Butch Morris, Tony Oxley, Herb Robertson, and Tomazs Stanko, among others.
She has toured widely across the United States, Australia, Canada, Europe, and
Japan.
Since 1998, Courvoisier regularly performs Solo, in Duo with Mark Feldman. Since 2013, she is the leader of her own Trio with Drew Gress and Kenny
Wollesen; their critically acclaimed album, D'AGALA (Intakt 2018) was included in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times Best Albums of the year lists.
Courvoisier is a co-leader of the Sylvie Courvoisier Mark Feldman Quartet with Drew Gress and Tom Rainey, the VWCR Quartet with Ken Vandermark, Nate Wooley and Tom Rainey and TISM Quartet with Tom Rainey, Ingrid Laubrock and Mark Feldman. Since 2017, she plays in duo with Mary Halvorson. Since 2000, she has been a member of Mephista, an improvising collective trio with Ikue Mori and Susie Ibarra.Courvoisier regularly performs in a number of John Zorn's groups and compositional projects including Cobra and the Masada and Bagatelle Marathon.
Since 2010, she has been a pianist and composer for Flamenco dancer Israel Galvan’s project La Curva. In 2018, Galvan and Courvoisier premiered Cast-aNet, a new project with Evan Parker, Mark Feldman, and Ikue Mori. In 2020, they premiered La Consagración de la primavera with Cory Smythe, performing the Stravinky’s Rite of Spring and Courvoisier’s Spectro for two pianos and dance.
Her albums include Time Gone Out ( Intakt, 2019), a duo with Mark Feldman; the Sylvie Courvoisier Trio's D'Agala (Intakt, 2018); Crop Circles (Relative Pitch Records, 2017), a duo with Mary Halvorson; Miller's Tale (Intakt, 2016), a collective Quartet with Evan Parker, Ikue Mori and Mark Feldman ; and Salt Task (Relative Pitch Records, 2016), a collective trio with Chris Corsano and Nate Wooley.
Courvoisier received numerous awards including the United States Artist Fellow (2020); the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists (2018); Swiss Music Prize (2018); Switzerland SUISA’s Jazz Prize (2017); and Switzerland's Grand Prix de la Fondation Vaudoise de la Culture (2010).
She received commissions to compose new works from The Shifting Foundation (2019) and the Chamber Music America's New Jazz Works (2016).
She received a B.A. from Gymnase du Bugnon, and attended the Conservatoire de Lausanne in Lausanne, Switzerland.