Jacques Demierre (born 4 January 1954, in Geneva) is a Swiss improvisation musician and composer.

Life and works

Demierre studied at the

University of Geneva The University of Geneva (French: ''Université de Genève'') is a public university, public research university located in Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded in 1559 by French theologian John Calvin as a Theology, theological seminary. It rema ...

at the (piano, jazz piano,

electroacoustic music Electroacoustic music is a Music genre, genre of Western art music in which composers use recording technology and audio signal processing to manipulate the timbres of Acoustics, acoustic sounds in the creation of pieces of music. It originated a ...

) and at the

Conservatoire de Musique de Genève The Conservatoire de musique de Genève is a music school in Geneva, Switzerland. The Conservatory hosts 2,400 non-professional students. Since 2009, the professional courses have been led by the Geneva University of Music (''Haute école de ...

(music theory). Soon, he gave up the classic piano and tended to the

avant-garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...

rock and improvised jazz. As a pianist, he played with ,

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, and also with

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and

Ikue Mori (born 17 December 1953), also known as Ikue Ile, is a drummer, electronic musician, composer, and graphic designer. Mori was awarded a "Genius grant" from the MacArthur Foundation in 2022. Biography Ikue Mori was born and raised in Japan. She sa ...

. He performed regularly solo concerts and worked also in a trio with and

Barry Guy Barry John Guy (born 22 April 1947, in London, England) is an English composer and double bass player. His range of interests encompasses early music, contemporary composition, jazz and improvisation, and he has worked with a wide variety of or ...

and also with

Urs Leimgruber Urs Leimgruber (1 January 1952 in Lucerne) is a Swiss saxophonist. He lived in Paris from 1988 to 2005. Then he came back to his home town, Lucerne. His fields of activity are improvisation, Jazz and 20th-century classical music. Discography ...

and

Barre Phillips Barre Phillips (October 27, 1934 – December 28, 2024) was an American jazz double bass, bassist. A professional musician since 1960, he moved to New York City in 1962, then to Europe in 1967. From 1972 he was based in southern France, where in ...

Sylvie Courvoisier Sylvie Courvoisier (born 30 November 1968) is a composer, pianist, improviser and bandleader. She was born and raised in Lausanne, Switzerland, and has been a resident of New York City since 1998. She won Germany’s International Jazz Piano Pri ...

, and Michel Wintsch were his students. Demierre changed his way as a composer to the border of jazz, free improvisation and contemporary music, because he was interested in mixing the improvised music tradition with notated music.

References

External links

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Profile
www.musinfo.ch (in French)
"The many sides of pianist Jacques Demierre: solo, duo and trio"
by John Eyles, 30 January 2009, www.allaboutjazz.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Demierre, Jacques 20th-century Swiss musicians Avant-garde jazz pianists 1954 births Living people Musicians from Geneva Intakt Records artists Psi Records artists