Christoph Stiefel: Pianist, Composer, Keyboarder

Hello and welcome to my website! Here you will find news and info about my current projects.

If you would like to be informed about my activities on a regular basis (concerts, new projects, CD releases), please send me an e-mail and put “newsletter” in the reference.

 

December 2012:  Cultural award from the city of Zurich : a one-year "working grant Jazz" !

 

1 Isorhythm #4
2 Inner Language
3 Isorhythm # 2.2
4 New Waltz For Nina
5 Olympus Mons
6 Eliane
7 Pensar Positivo
8 Cosmos
9 In And Out Of Order

Press:

Big Interview in www.allaboutjazz.com

Jazzwise Magazine (UK): **** Rhythmic Revolutionary - The trio infuses the set with an infectious, often funky adrenalinerush of momentum...Just as contemporyry piano trio fatigue seemed to be setting in, Stiefel comes along to raise the bar again.

The Guardian (UK): **** Christoph Stiefel is a rhythmically adventurous performer fascinated by the interplay of grooves. Slow episodes have a gentleness that reveal Stiefel's nuanced touch is equal to his up-tempo fluency.

Sonntagszeitung (CH) **** (Sunday edition of the German-language daily newspaper Tagesanzeiger): As if one had been there: the Zurich-based jazz pianist Christoph Stiefel was able to burn the wild fires of a live performance onto a CD. Glowing with energy, he loops together soulful melodies and refined beats, creating wonderfully beautiful sound sculptures, at times intoxicating, at times quiet. This has nothing to do with jazz clichés, but rather overwhelms both head and gut to the same extent. One wonders how he does it, and then reads about “isorhythms” in the CD booklet. Whatever secrets that may hold, this stuff really kicks in.

The Jazz Mann (UK): A very impressive album overall and one that deserves to raise Stiefel's profile in the UK. “Live!” is eminently accessible and full of striking melodies and strong rhythmic ideas.

The Jazz Breakfast (UK):  The band can be lyrical and rhapsodic as evidenced by Waltz For Nina, although at other times – the first four minutes of Olympus Mons, for example – it can sound like three men trying to exhaust each other in a physical work-out. Overall, this is a very strong performance with all the right highs and lows, surges and retreats, in the sequence of pieces.

 

The new CD "Inner Language Trio LIVE!" was internationally released in October 2012 by the English Jazz-Label Basho Records. After a concert-tour in England, Germany and Switzerland in october and november 2012, more concerts in Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands are coming up in jan/march 2013.

 

In september 2012, the entirely new, exciting big project Christoph Stiefel’s Isorhythm Orchestra was for the first time on stage :Together with some of the very best Swiss jazz musicians, Christoph Stiefel has performed his Isorhythms in a larger, more orchestral line-up (Septet). Now more concerts at several Jazz-Festivals are coming up in 2013.

 

After the succesful first performances of the brandnew duo-program "Tale of a Honeybee" with Japanese dancer Hideto Heshiki at the Tanzhaus Zürich in may 2012, more performances to follow in 2013...

The new CD "Bima Sakti" of the new duo formation with Lisette Spinnler (voc) has been released in February 2012 by the German label Traumton and is available as CD and Download! Along with the CD-release please look for live concerts coming upin 2013.