François Couturier (born 2 May 1950 in

Fleury-les-Aubrais Fleury-les-Aubrais () is a commune in the Loiret department, Centre-Val de Loire, France. It is a northern suburb of Orléans. As a part of German-occupied France, its railway station was destroyed in 1944 by the Combined Bomber Offensive. ...

Orléans Orléans (,"Orleans"
(US) and jazz pianist Jazz piano is a collective term for the techniques pianists use when playing jazz. The piano has been an integral part of the jazz idiom since its inception, in both solo and ensemble settings. Its role is multifaceted due largely to the Musical ...

Biography

Couturier began learning piano at the age of six. A year after earning his degree in classical piano and

musicology Musicology is the academic, research-based study of music, as opposed to musical composition or performance. Musicology research combines and intersects with many fields, including psychology, sociology, acoustics, neurology, natural sciences, ...

in 1977, he met Jacques Thollot's quartet bassist Jean-Paul Céléa, with whom he formed a duo. Between 1981 and 1983, Couturier toured with John McLaughlin, with whom he also recorded. Over time, he played with French jazz musicians such as

André Ceccarelli André "Dédé" Ceccarelli (born 5 January 1946) is a French jazz drummer. Biography After learning to play the drums from his father, Ceccarelli started out playing in the salons of the Hotel Royal Nice Promenade des Anglais at the age of fi ...

, Eddy Louiss,

Michel Portal Michel Portal (born 27 November 1935) is a French composer, saxophonist, and clarinetist. He plays both jazz and classical music and is considered to be "one of the architects of modern European jazz". Early life Portal was born in Bayonne on 27 ...

François Jeanneau François Jeanneau (born June 15, 1935, Paris) is a French jazz saxophonist, flautist, and composer. Jeanneau studied flute under René Leroy at the Paris Conservatory, but was an autodidact on saxophone.Michel Laplace, "Francois Jeanneau". '' The ...

and with

Daniel Humair Daniel Humair (born 23 May 1938 in Geneva, Switzerland) is a Swiss drummer, composer, and painter. He is widely renowned and became a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1986 and Officier in 1992. He has played with many jazz perf ...

. After first meeting during the 1985 edition of the Festival de Carthage, Couturier collaborated on Tunisian

oud The oud ( ; , ) is a Middle Eastern short-neck lute-type, pear-shaped, fretless stringed instrument (a chordophone in the Hornbostel–Sachs classification of instruments), usually with 11 strings grouped in six courses, but some models have ...

player

Anouar Brahem Anouar Brahem (; born on 20 October 1957) is a Tunisian oud player and composer. He is widely acclaimed as an innovator in his field. Performing primarily for a jazz audience, he combines Arabic classical music, folk music and jazz and has bee ...

's albums '' Khomsa'' (1994), '' Le pas du Chat Noir'' (2001) and '' Le Voyage de Sahar'' (2005), and the two have toured together several times since 2001. In 2006, his album ''Nostalghia – A Song for Tarkovsky'' was released on the label

ECM Records ECM (Edition of Contemporary Music) is an independent record label founded by Karl Egger, Manfred Eicher and Manfred Scheffner in Munich in 1969. While ECM is best known for jazz music, the label has released a variety of recordings, and ECM's a ...

alongside soprano saxophonist Jean-Marc Larché,

accordionist Accordions (from 19th-century German ', from '—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed in a frame). The es ...

Jean-Louis Matinier Jean-Louis Matinier (born 1963 in Nevers, France) is a leading contemporary accordion player in the fields of jazz and world music. Life and work Matinier studied classical music, then turned to jazz and other forms of improvised music. From 1989 ...

and

cellist The violoncello ( , ), commonly abbreviated as cello ( ), is a middle pitched bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), tuned i ...

Anja Lechner. The album is dedicated to the film director

Andrei Tarkovsky Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky (, ; 4 April 1932 – 29 December 1986) was a Soviet film director and screenwriter of Russian origin. He is widely considered one of the greatest directors in cinema history. Works by Andrei Tarkovsky, His films e ...

and his films. The album's music was also presented at various festivals, first in

Bergamo Bergamo ( , ; ) is a city in the Alps, alpine Lombardy region of northern Italy, approximately northeast of Milan, and about from the alpine lakes Lake Como, Como and Lake Iseo, Iseo and 70 km (43 mi) from Lake Garda, Garda and Lake ...

in 2006. Other albums with the "Tarkovsky Quartet" followed in 2011 and 2017. In 2007, he played in the quintet "Passaggio", with which he recorded two albums on

Label Bleu Label Bleu is a French jazz record label founded by Michel Orier. Orier established the label in the mid-1980s in Amiens and soon after took over directorship of Amiens's cultural center, where he was able to build a recording studio. Label Bleu ...

, and in the "European Jazz Trio" with Céléa and

Wolfgang Reisinger Wolfgang Reisinger (16 July 1955 – 8 June 2022) was an Austrian jazz percussion player. Biography Reisinger started his education in music at Vienna Boys' Choir at the age of 5. Then, he studied piano at the Music and Arts University of th ...

. He also plays in duo with the violinist

Dominique Pifarély Dominique Pifarély (born 1957) is a French jazz violinist. He works in avant-garde jazz, but he has also worked in post-bop and other contexts. Career Pifarély was born in Bègles. In 1979, he began touring with bassist Didier Levallet and ...

on his album ''Poros'' (1997) and with the pianist Jean-Pierre Chalet. With the

countertenor A countertenor (also contra tenor) is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range is equivalent to that of the female contralto or mezzo-soprano voice types, generally extending from around G3 to D5 or E5, although a sopranist (a ...

Dominique Visse Dominique Visse (born 30 August 1955) is a French countertenor and founder of the Ensemble Clément Janequin. Life and career Dominique Visse was a chorister at the Notre-Dame de Paris and studied organ and flute at the Versailles Conservatory. A ...

he recorded ''From Machaut to Berio''.

Discography

* 2014: With the cellist Anja Lechner ''Moderato cantabile'', ECM New Series 2367, 2014.''Improvisation mit fünf Lebenslinien'' in FAZ vom 16.

Honors

* 1981: Prix Django Reinhardt

References

External links

*
Website des Künstlers

Biographie bei Label Bleu

Biographie bei ECM und zu seinem Album Nostalghia
{{DEFAULTSORT:Couturier, Francois French jazz pianists Jazz fusion musicians 1950 births Living people Musicians from Orléans Label Bleu artists ECM Records artists French male jazz pianists