Emile Parisien & Michael Wollny
Biography Emile Parisien & Michael Wollny
Émile Parisien
is one of the most prominent figures in French jazz. A jazz visionary who stands with one foot in the past while keeping his gaze fixed firmly on the future. This makes him the "best news in European jazz in a long time" (Le Monde)—an artist deserving of "undivided attention" (NDR). Parisien’s musical coordinates are broadly defined; ranging from the folkloric traditions of his homeland, they extend through the compositional strategies of contemporary music to the melodic and harmonic abstraction of free jazz. The unique quality of this expansive musical landscape lies in the sheer naturalness with which it is explored. Nothing about Parisien’s work feels calculated or forced. Instead, the characteristics of various genres flow into one another within his music—effortlessly, with a light touch, and without the need for conceptual scaffolding. Accolades were not long in coming: Parisien was named Artist of the Year by both of France’s most prestigious jazz awards—the "Prix Django Reinhardt" in 2012 and the "Victoires du Jazz" in 2014. In Germany, he received the 2015 ECHO Jazz award in the "Best International Ensemble" category for his captivating duo with his musical alter ego and close friend, the accordionist Vincent Peirani.
Michael Wollny
Born in Schweinfurt in 1978, this pianist is undoubtedly regarded as one of the most significant European jazz musicians of his generation. Yet, he is anything but a typical jazz pianist. Few approach the grand piano with such physicality as Wollny. Both mentally and physically, he is in constant motion. He often attacks the instrument with visceral intensity. His inspiration may stem from Franz Schubert or Gustav Mahler, from Björk or Kraftwerk, from Japanese gangster films or horror stories; his playing is as boundless as his quest for the hitherto unheard. One simply cannot escape the expressive power that results from this energy—an energy coupled with inexhaustible inventiveness and superlative technique.
Wollny began taking piano and violin lessons at the age of five; a major influence was his older sister—also a pianist—who introduced him primarily to the Classical Romantic repertoire. Thus, for him, "playing the piano was always both things—improvisation, and playing Bach or Schumann," as he recounts. When, at the age of 16, he enrolled as an auditor at the Herrmann Zilcher Conservatory in Würzburg, he was discovered by the pianist and professor Chris Beier. Recognizing Wollny’s talent, Beier took him under his wing as a junior student at the Würzburg University of Music. His next milestones included the German National Youth Jazz Orchestra (BuJazzO), his first trio as a bandleader, and a duo with saxophonist Hubert Winter. From 2001 onwards, Wollny was frequently invited to perform as a pianist with the hr-Jazzensemble. Here, he had the opportunity to work alongside the titans of German jazz: Albert and Emil Mangelsdorff, Christof Lauer, and—not least—Heinz Sauer. The saxophonist was so impressed by the young man at the piano that he invited him to perform with his sextet at the 32nd German Jazz Festival in Frankfurt. It marked the starting shot for a cross-generational musical partnership that endures to this day—a collaboration documented across four award-winning duo albums.
A shared musical exchange on equal footing—this is also the guiding principle behind Trio [em], which Michael Wollny—who has since relocated to Berlin—founded in 2002 alongside bassist Eva Kruse and drummer Eric Schaefer. For several months, ACT founder and producer Siggi Loch searched for the name of the pianist whose unlabeled trio demo tape had been slipped to him from various quarters—a recording that captivated him instantly. Michael Wollny signed on as an exclusive ACT artist, and Trio [em] recorded their debut album, *call it [em]*, which simultaneously launched the *Young German Jazz* series—a successful franchise that continues to thrive today. Critics rubbed their eyes in astonishment: "*call it [em]* sounds like a synopsis of everything vital, young jazz music ought to be: fresh, brimming with swirling influences, and uncompromisingly authentic. Something truly unique," declared the magazine *Jazz thing*. *Die ZEIT* hailed [em] as "the most exciting piano trio in the world," while the British newspaper *The Observer* proclaimed with conviction: "This is the future sound of jazz." The reactions to the trio’s subsequent four albums were no less effusive.
Naturally, encounters with renowned colleagues also became increasingly frequent. Wollny has performed alongside musicians as diverse as Gary Peacock, Michel Portal, Jim McNeely, Peter Erskine, Vince Mendoza, Pat Metheny, Joe Locke, and Donny McCaslin.
Joachim Kühn—an icon of jazz piano and the subject of Wollny’s master’s thesis—recorded a duo album with him at Schloss Elmau. Wollny also actively seeks engagement with the Scandinavian jazz scene—a movement that has been so influential in recent years; to this day, he tours frequently with trombonist Nils Landgren (both as a duo and as a member of Landgren’s bands) and with bassist Lars Danielsson’s quartet. A fitting title to encapsulate the many diverse facets of Michael Wollny’s artistry might well be the title of the album he recorded in 2009 with harpsichordist Tamar Halperin: *Wunderkammer*.
By 2013—when the era of Trio [em] came to a close—Wollny had achieved almost everything a young German jazz musician could hope to accomplish, thanks in no small part to a grueling schedule pushed to the very limits and the unwavering support of the ACT label. He had garnered every major German award—from the 2007 Bavarian Prize for the Promotion of the Arts, the 2013 Bavarian State Music Prize, and the 2013 Binding Cultural Prize, to the 2008 SWR Jazz Prize, the German Record Critics' Award (2005 and 2013), the 2011 New German Jazz Prize, the 2009 BMW Welt Jazz Award, and the ECHO Jazz Award (2010 and 2013). Furthermore, he had secured prestigious international honors—such as the "Choc de l'année" from the French jazz publication *Jazzman / Jazz Magazine* and the Ronnie Scott's Jazz Award for "Most Promising International Newcomer of the Year"—winning over critics and gaining worldwide recognition. The only thing he had yet to become was a "bestseller" beyond the confines of the jazz world itself.
This changed in 2014 with the album *Weltentraum* (World Dream)—this time recorded by the "Michael Wollny Trio," featuring his inseparable longtime collaborator Eric Schaefer on drums and the American bassist Tim Lefebvre. After the news programs *heute journal* and *Tagesthemen* aired segments on the release, the CD briefly shot past even pop stars like Beyoncé to reach number two on the Amazon charts. It was named "Album of the Year" even in England, and garnered no fewer than three ECHO Jazz awards—a record-breaking feat. Yet, with its arrangements of works by avant-gardists such as Paul Hindemith, Wolfgang Rihm, Edgar Varèse, and Alban Berg, the album was hardly predestined to become a hit; it was only Wollny’s interpretation—astonishingly as complex as it was catchy—that transformed it into one. Since then, the name Michael Wollny has filled major concert halls such as the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, the Berlin Philharmonie, and the Prinzregententheater in Munich. Moreover, 2014 marked the addition of an entirely new professional sphere to Michael Wollny’s creative life: since that year, he has served as a professor at the University of Music and Theatre in Leipzig, his new home city.
Yet this has done nothing to alter his artistic trajectory. To this day, Wollny has consistently avoided repeating himself. After experimenting—in the trio [em]—with influences ranging from rock and pop to the Second Viennese School, and collaborating in other projects with artists far removed from the jazz world—such as Konstantin Gropper, Christian Brückner, Leafcutter John, Alex Nowitz, and Uwe Dierksen (of Ensemble Modern)—in a wide variety of ways, his next trio album in 2015, *Nachtfahrten* (Night Drives)—now featuring Christian Weber on bass—focused primarily on reduction. On this record, pieces like "Neon Nocturnes" unfolded as floating, immediately resonant sonic still lifes—achieving a level of success comparable to that of *Weltentraum*.
Thus, he performed—alone and under his own name—one of the Karsten Jahnke JazzNights series, which are typically structured as double bills; throughout the evening, he alternated between playing solo, in a duo, and in a trio.
Moreover, Wollny continues to seek out the challenge of a dialogue with equally accomplished—and equally outstanding—partners. Take, for instance, the French accordionist Vincent Peirani: from their very first encounter—during an ACT Jubilee Night at the New Morning club in Paris in 2012—Wollny recognized him as a kindred spirit and the ideal musical counterpart for his own brand of musical storytelling. Wollny was already on board for Peirani’s ACT debut, *Thrill Box*; and despite the breakneck pace at which they both pursue their respective projects, they managed to find the time to record their joint album, *Tandem*, released in 2016. Then, in 2017, they joined forces with Peirani’s longtime collaborator—soprano saxophonist Émile Parisien (the pair had, so to speak, stormed the summit of the French jazz scene in lockstep, achieving triumphs that included multiple "Victoires du Jazz" awards)—and the Swiss vocal artist Andreas Schaerer (who had just ascended to the ranks of international stardom) to form a European "supergroup" whose creative output is impressively captured on the album *Out of Land*.
It is impossible to miss the fact that Wollny’s interpretation of the jazz idiom is deeply rooted in the European musical tradition. Consequently, classical music institutions are increasingly vying for his creativity and popularity: the Konzerthaus Dortmund, for instance, has dedicated an entire series of evenings exclusively to Michael Wollny. Similarly, the Rheingau Musik Festival is honoring him with a "residency," featuring a diverse array of projects spanning the entire season. For the 2015 Music Festival—marking the year’s special focus on Bach—the Alte Oper Frankfurt commissioned him for the first time to perform an interpretation of the *Goldberg Variations*. This engagement blossomed into an annual tradition, continuing first with an adaptation of Claude Debussy’s *Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune*, followed by a contribution to Schubert’s *Winterreise*, and most recently with György Ligeti’s *Atmosphères*. Perfectly complementing this series is a favorite project of Wollny’s—one that synthesizes his passions for cinema, the "Gothic," and classical modernism: together with drummer Eric Schaefer and the Norwegian Wind Ensemble (Det Norske Blåseensemble)—led by the revolutionary Norwegian big-band innovator Geir Lysne—he performs a live musical score for Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau’s 1922 film classic, *Nosferatu*. This fruitful and acclaimed collaboration deepened when Wollny and Siggi Loch, acting on a spontaneous impulse, invited the orchestra to join them for the studio sessions for the trio’s new album at Oslo’s renowned Rainbow Studios. Just one week after these sessions—in early September 2017—the trio took the stage alongside guest artist Emile Parisien for the gala concert celebrating ACT’s 25th anniversary, held at the historic Wartburg Castle in Eisenach; this performance resulted in yet another recording. Thus, entirely unplanned, what began as a single project evolved into two distinct albums by the Michael Wollny Trio—*Oslo* and *Wartburg*—both released in March 2018. This very spontaneity—this willingness to deviate from the planned or the expected—is a defining characteristic of Michael Wollny and his artistry; yet he never makes decisions arbitrarily, but rather out of sheer enthusiasm, always in the service of the music and...
