Cory Smythe, piano

Pianist Cory Smythe has worked closely with pioneering artists in new, improvisatory, and classical music, including multi-instrumentalist-composer Tyshawn Sorey, violinist Hilary Hahn, and transdisciplinary composers from Anthony Braxton to Zosha Di Castri. His own “perplexingly perfect” (The Wire) music “dissolves the lines between composition and improvisation with rigor” (Chicago Reader). Smythe has received commissions from Present Music, the Banff Centre for the Arts, the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra, the Wiener Festwochen, and the International Contemporary Ensemble, of which he is a longtime member. He received a Grammy award for his work with Ms. Hahn and a 2022 Herb Alpert Award in music.
In recent years, Smythe's work has increasingly centered his improvisations on an augmented and estranged piano. At this concert, he will perform newly composed music for this instrument alongside works by Anthony Braxton and a song cycle by Erik Carlson.
photo credit: Moritz Bichler