Yonathan Avishai / Solo
Yonatan Avishai is coming to the closing evening of the special residency, presenting a personal and moving piano solo. His music combines contemporary jazz with tradition, offering a sense of emotional and creative connection with the piano. Critics praise his intimate and profound style.
Yonatan Avishai is coming to the closing evening of the special residency, presenting a personal and moving piano solo. His music combines contemporary jazz with tradition, offering a sense of emotional and creative connection with the piano. Critics praise his intimate and profound style.
Further details about the closing evening of the special residency, "A Journey from the Outside Inward." Yonatan Avishai arrives alone at the piano - exposed, personal, and moving. In the solo format, Avishai's musical language is expressed in its most refined manner. He is a piano poet who, through a contemporary and fresh use of jazz traditions - swing, blues, and improvisation - creates a poetic and rich musical world, fueled by the desire to tell a story and touch emotions. His delicate and precise playing gives the feeling that he composes silence and sculpts sound. His musical language is influenced by creators such as Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, and Ahmad Jamal, moving between moments of gentleness and silence and dramatic power, managing to transform even familiar standards into a new and surprising experience.
Yonatan Avishai is undoubtedly one of the most original and unique pianists and creators in contemporary Israeli and European jazz. His qualities as a virtuoso pianist gained global recognition in the early 2000s as a member of the ensemble Third World Love – a phenomenon on the brink of cult status in the global jazz scene, alongside trumpeter Avishai Cohen, bassist Omer Avital, and drummer Daniel Friedman. Avishai has built an international reputation thanks to his intimate, lyrical, and deep playing style, combining influences from traditional jazz, classical music, folklore, and Mediterranean music. Critics often praise his ability to turn silence, space, and melody into an integral part of his improvisation – an approach reminiscent of the greatest pianists, especially Ahmad Jamal.
Over the years, he has collaborated with leading artists, notably with trumpeter Avishai Cohen, with whom he recorded and performed worldwide. His albums as a leader, released under the prestigious ECM label, have received critical acclaim for their originality, musical depth, and unique sound. In 2019, he was even chosen as "Musician of the Year" by Jazz Magazine, a recognition that highlighted his status as one of the prominent pianists of his generation.
From the reviews:
"Enchanting and touching, Yonatan's music is carried by a continuous breath... impossible not to admire." - Jazz Magazine
"In his playing, as in his writing, Yonatan Avishai gives the impression that he is in an ongoing search for deep intimacy... always aiming to touch the essence." - France Musique
"Yonatan Avishai is an original and unique voice in the international jazz scene and one of the most successful Israeli musicians in the world." - Yotam Ziv, Haaretz
📷 Yossi Tzevker
