Eve Risser (born 1982) is a French

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a majo ...

and improvised music performer, composer and arranger. She mostly plays piano and

prepared piano A prepared piano is a piano that has had its sounds temporarily altered by placing bolts, screws, mutes, rubber erasers, and/or other objects on or between the strings. Its invention is usually traced to John Cage's dance music for '' Bacchanal ...

, but also plays

harpsichord A harpsichord ( it, clavicembalo; french: clavecin; german: Cembalo; es, clavecín; pt, cravo; nl, klavecimbel; pl, klawesyn) is a musical instrument played by means of a musical keyboard, keyboard. This activates a row of levers that turn a ...

and other instruments.

Life and career

Risser was born in 1982 in

Colmar Colmar (, ; Alsatian: ' ; German during 1871–1918 and 1940–1945: ') is a city and commune in the Haut-Rhin department and Grand Est region of north-eastern France. The third-largest commune in Alsace (after Strasbourg and Mulhouse), ...

, France. She had piano lessons as a child and first saw graphic notation at the age of 11. This "set her imagination free. But those desires were quashed by her instructor, who situated that sort of interpretational freedom within a larger, rigorous practice of study."Margasak, Peter (March 2015) "Risser's Prepared Piano Work Defies Categorization". ''Down Beat''. p. 16. Risser lived in Colmar until she was 18. She then studied in Strasbourg for four years, playing improvised music and jazz on the piano and contemporary music on the flute. She decided to concentrate on the piano after completing her studies. She reported that "When I stopped the flute, I felt so limited in my improvisations with timbres that I started to explore the inside of the piano to be able to imitate trumpets, percussions and saxophones ..I realized that building stuff with my hands for the piano was super fun." Risser was pianist in the Orchestre national de jazz from 2009 to 2013.Scotney, Sebastian (8 March 2015
"Interview: Eve Risser (Banlieues Bleues, Jazzahead, Jazzdor Strasbourg-Berlin) / #IWD2015"
. London Jazz News. The premiere of her ''White Desert'', for a tentet with amateur choirs, was in March 2015.

Playing style

A reviewer described her playing on the 2012 trio album ''En Corps'' as being "anything but conventional, highly percussive, full of muted strings, extended techniques, and repetitive phrases".Stef (24 September 2012

freejazzblog. A ''

Down Beat ' (styled in all caps) is an American music magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond", the last word indicating its expansion beyond the jazz realm which it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1934 in Ch ...

'' reviewer of her solo piano record ''Des Pas Sur La Neige'' commented on Risser's "arsenal of techniques and tools that transform her instrument into a kaleidoscopic sound machine, producing unexpected tones and timbres."

Discography

An asterisk (*) indicates that the year is that of release.

As leader/co-leader

As sidewoman

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Risser, Eve 1982 births French jazz pianists 21st-century French women pianists Living people People from Colmar