My music is best understood by children and animals.
Igor Stravinsky
Behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our minds cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly.
Albert Einstein
To stay sane, you have to categorize the insanity of the world.
Jerry Bruckheimer
Beauty presents a stonewall to the thinking mind.
Peter Schjeldahl
It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you
know for sure that just ain't so.
Mark Twain
-Spring & Summer 2010: European & North American Tours for the release of "True Story", Jean-Michel's new album for Dreyfus.
BORIS KOZLOV, b - BILLY HART, d
"JEAN-MICHEL PILC - A PORTRAIT", a film by John McCormick, is now available. Buy it online
Scroll down for excerpts
In 2009-10, Jean-Michel will be performing with his new trio featuring Boris Kozlov (b) & Billy Hart (d), solo piano, and with the Hoenig Pilc Project, co-led by Jean-Michel & drummer Ari Hoenig.
"True Story", Jean-Michel's upcoming album for Dreyfus, features Boris Kozlov & Billy Hart, and will be released early 2010. The trio will be touring during the spring of 2010.
Jean-Michel received last year from Chamber Music America, for the second time, a New Works: Creation and Presentation Grant. The first time was for the "Trio Sonata" featured in "Cardinal Points".
The new project is the writing and performance of a "Chaplin Suite", a piece reflecting Charles Chaplin's work and inspired by his movies (made possible with generous funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation). The piece has been premiered at Caramoor Jazz Festival on August 1st, 2009
For more info on Chamber Music America, please visit: CMA Website
Jean-Michel is teaching at NYU, and is giving private lessons (all instruments), workshops, clinics & masterclasses. He is currently working on a pedagogical book about Jazz and Improvisation.
A new septet called "Big One" is also in the works.
SCROLL DOWN TO WATCH 3 VIDEOS
Widmung clip + 2 excerpts of a new film about Jean-Michel.
JMP in brief:
Born in 1960, self-taught.
Moved to NYC in 1995.
Has been intensively recording & touring worldwide, performing trio & solo, and also teaching clinics and masterclasses, as well as privately.
Has played with: Roy Haynes, Michael Brecker, Dave Liebman, Jean Toussaint, Rick Margitza, Martial Solal, Michel Portal, Daniel Humair, Marcus Miller, Kenny Garrett, Lenny White, Chris Potter, John Abercrombie, Mingus Dynasty & Big Band, Lew Soloff and Richard Bona. Has also worked with Harry Belafonte, as his musical director and pianist.
'Pilc ranks among today's titans of the instrument.'
-Howard Reich, Chicago Tribune
'...visual art references come to mind: Cubist renderings of melody in which the original is reshaped into a completely different visual perspective...'
-Don Heckman, The Los Angeles Times
'His densely harmonic reinventions of standards you thought you knew clearly shows a musical genius at work.'
-Eric Brace, Washington Post
'Beyond all that can be said about his masterful technique and his beauty of touch, it is the unpredictability that is central to his remarkable talent.' -Harry Belafonte
VIDEOS
Widmung
Jean-Michel, Thomas Bramerie (b) and Mark Mondesir (d) play "Widmung", a Schumann melody arranged by Jean-Michel, from his upcoming CD "New Dreams" (Dreyfus, release 2007). A clip by Gildas Boclé.
Jean-Michel Pilc: A Portrait (2 excerpts)
An upcoming film about Jean-Michel by John McCormick (release 2008 - DVD & iTunes).
Featuring Ari Hoenig, François Moutin, etc.
Online!
