Stefano Bollani wins European Jazz Prize 2007

[Lois Gilbert]

Stefano Bollani wins European Jazz Prize 2007

Stefano Bollani has won the European Jazz Prize, the annual award sponsored by the City of Vienna. Jury members of 23 European countries nominate 23 European musicians and select the musician of the year who has attracted major attention on a high artistic level in the international jazz field, in the preceding year. The award will be presented on December 14 in Vienna's Porgy & Bess club. From the jury's findings: "The 34-year-old Italian pianist Stefano Bollani belongs to the younger breed of European musicians who feels equally at home in American jazz, European music and pop traditions, leaving his own special imprint on whatever he plays.

Instead of aiming for brilliant virtuoso effect, he applies his polished technique to creating transparency as well as harmonic constructions studded with surprising details; practicing the art of reharmonization, with his solid compositions striking a comfortable balance between clearly delineated and open structures. In the tradition of Keith Jarrett and Michel Petrucciani, but also reminiscent of romantic European piano music, Stefano Bollani represents the type of "complete pianistics" that places total orchestral sound in the foreground, ahead of spectacular virtuoso pyrotechnics. His individualistic style, endowed with the refined restraint of meaningful bass figures and carefully chosen harmonies on the one side and well-wrought melodies on the other, has earned him a reputation as one of the leading pianists of the younger generation. In addition to this, in his solo concerts and performances with a diverse range of small ensembles, he has displayed a playful sense of irony and virtually encyclopedic mastery of music types from a wide variety of sources."

Stefano Bollani first recorded for ECM with Enrico Rava's quintet on "Easy Living" in 2003. This was followed by "Tati" – Rava with Bollani and Paul Motian – in 2004 – and Bollani's own "Piano Solo" in 2005.

In October ECM releases "The Third Man", a new disc by Enrico Rava and Stefano Bollani, recorded in Lugano at the end of last year. The duo has several concerts in the weeks ahead, with dates in Milan (September 23), Paris (November 12), Cagliari (November 15), Berlin (November 17), London (November 21), Bari (November 30) and Alcamo (December 7).
Further dates are in preparation for 2008.

[justinruins]

It's great to see Bollani getting some recognition. Looking forward to the duo disc with Rava, as they have a special chemistry.

[Baladin]

Seeing Stefano playing at Dean Clough in Halifax has been one of the musical highlights of the year. Since then I've listened to several live solo recordings which have all been outstanding.