co Ziv Ravitz

A musical and theatrical portrait

A sought-after pianist on the international jazz scene and regular companion of trumpeter Avishaï Cohen and double bassist Omer Avital, Yonathan Avishaï has made delicacy his trademark.

The most beautiful moment of a show is the one that precedes it
A stage
The silhouette of a piano
The silhouette of a pianist
The silhouette of a piece…

Foreign musician of the year 2019 for « Jazz Magazine », the most French of the Israeli virtuosos is a true narrator who could be said to write the silences and free the melody.
In 2019 he recorded two albums for the prestigious ECM Records label, « Joys and Solitudes » as a trio and « Playing The Room » as a duo with Avishaï Cohen, confirming his taste for elegance and a certain simplicity.
This time, he presents himself alone on stage, a stage that is not only a space where he performs but a place where different art forms that are dear to him and that inspire him cohabit. Conceived as a real staging of his compositions but also of their interpretation, « Pianist » gives voice to a musician in the intimacy of his dialogue with his instrument, shows what we usually don’t see, illuminates the intervals that he is particularly fond of and that he likes to stretch in order to offer a new abundance to his music, that of a serious lightness. There is a fragility at work here, a fragility that does not hide but, on the contrary, is shared, unfurled.
And then there are texts that are part of this encounter between his music and the stage. Texts by Yonatan Avishai but also others that particularly touch him. Direct addresses to the audience, readings aloud, words covered in piano. Because ‘Pianist’ is also a form of speaking for the discreet instrumentalist, a way of engaging in a more direct conversation with the world. How much latitude does a pianist have? What to do with his feeling of powerlessness in the face of suffering? How can creation reconcile emotion and action? Between universal questions that could not be more topical, but also eternal and personal, « Pianist » reveals the man behind the piano, but perhaps also the pianist in each of us.

He is undoubtedly one of the main faces of today’s jazz piano. From an early age, he has led his own groups, played with saxophonist Arnie Lawrence, then accompanied Omer Avital and Avishai Cohen. After « Modern Times » and « The Parade », he now presents his personal project in trio in all intimacy and proximity released on the prestigious ECM label. Irresistible poetry and elegance, his music will carry you away! « Yonathan Avishai is an instrumentalist whose musical discourse is always structured by breathing, space and silence, with, in the tradition of Ahmad Jamal, an inflexible mastery of the pulse and an innate sense of the most telluric blues and the most incisive swing. TÉLÉRAMA