Tord Gustavsen at Kerrytown Concert House

Nearly twenty years ago, Norwegian pianist and composer Tord Gustavsen came forth with a new approach to jazz that focuses on lyricism within a stripped-down approach to music. The way he melded emotional intensity and beauty touched audiences and with the release of his first album for ECM Records sparked the growth of a worldwide following. His recorded works and most of his live concerts have featured his piano trio or a quartet with tenor saxophone, whereas solo performances have been relatively rare. As is true for most people, including
musicians, the limitations caused by the pandemic have steered him to solitary work, composing and performing alone at the piano. In response to an invitation from Kerrytown Concert House, he will perform a solo piano suite, the Kerrytown Suite, of his own works and his arrangements of Norwegian hymns....

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Nearly twenty years ago, Norwegian pianist and composer Tord Gustavsen came forth with a new approach to jazz that focuses on lyricism within a stripped-down approach to music. The way he melded emotional intensity and beauty touched audiences and with the release of his first album for ECM Records sparked the growth of a worldwide following. His recorded works and most of his live concerts have featured his piano trio or a quartet with tenor saxophone, whereas solo performances have been relatively rare. As is true for most people, including
musicians, the limitations caused by the pandemic have steered him to solitary work, composing and performing alone at the piano. In response to an invitation from Kerrytown Concert House, he will perform a solo piano suite, the Kerrytown Suite, of his own works and his arrangements of Norwegian hymns.

The performance will be given in the Norwegian city of Bærum in Tanum Church where Gustavsen has served as cantor and jazz pianist since 2017. The addition of this post to his freelance work is fitting as the beginnings of his life in music, his “standards” as he puts it, are the hymns he sang in church as a youth. They remain with him, both as an undercurrent of inspiration as he composes new works, and as the subject of new arrangements of the masterworks of the past.

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