This weekend Eve Risser will receive the Paul Acket Award 2023 at NN North Sea Jazz festival. The day after she will bring her Red Desert Orchestra to our stage. The French pianist previously played here in a piano duo with Kaja Draksler. Now she will appear as an orchestra leader and composer with compelling, imaginative music full of experiment, improvisation and cultural cross-pollination.

Eve Risser is known for her prepared piano techniques, influencing the sound of the piano strings with objects such as screws and magnets. This way she uses the piano in part as a percussion instrument. In previous projects by the Red Desert Orchestra she sought interaction with percussionists from Mali and Burkina Faso. Risser draws inspiration for her compositions from nature: mountains, snow and minerals form a common thread in her work.

Every year, NN North Sea Jazz presents the Paul Acket Award to an artist whose exceptional musical talent makes them deserving of wider recognition. One of the jurors of the Paul Acket Award, Oslo Jazz Festival director Øyvind Larsen, describes Eve Risser as a ‘contemporary composer who explores and expands the idiom of modern music. Her poetic playing is percussive and physical, ranging in form from solo performances to large orchestras.’

Antonin Tri-Hoang sax/clarinet, Gregoire Tirtiaux baritone sax, Nils Ostendorf trumpet, Eve Risser piano, Tatiana Paris electric bass, Blanche Lafuente drums, Ophelia Hie balafon/percussion, Mélissa Hie balafon/percussion