Tania Giannouli

Greek pianist, composer, improviser and bandleader. She studied classical music (Piano Soloist and Composition diplomas) and Agriculture (MS on Food Technology, AUA). She explores jazz as the most creative music form and regularly employs improvisation in her practice. She makes jazz of the kind where improvisation is just the starting point and somewhere out there - or something deep inside - is the aim. Ιnspired by many different traditions and influences, her music and interdisciplinary projects span an impressive range of styles - a creative and borderless amalgamation of the global today’s reality.


Establishing her very own voice, embracing and transcending occidental and oriental spheres on her soulful path of creation and dedication to the essentials of moving sound. Her genre-defying "open sound language" is often described as lyrical, inspired, complex, eclectic, intoxicating and highly original. As the Korean magazine Jazzspace has written: “This music invites the listener to dream of eternity.”

Her imaginative, explorative musical nature has led to four unique recording collaborations, all released on New Zealand's foremost art-music label, Rattle Records: Forest Stories (2012, with Portuguese wind player, Paulo Chagas), Transcendence (2015, featuring works composed for her Tania Giannouli Ensemble), Rewa (2018, a critically acclaimed, entirely improvised collaboration with traditional Maori instrumentalist, Rob Thorne) and In Fading Light (2020, an unexpected trio with trumpet player Andreas Polyzogopoulos and oud player Kyriakos Tapakis). All four albums received wide international acclaim and were included in numerous ‘Best of’ lists, with Transcendence cited as one of the most important Greek albums of the decade according to many Greek media.

She has performed at several venues and festivals in Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, the Czech Republic, Turkey, Italy, Slovenia, Romania, Skopje, Greece (among others: Jazzfest Berlin- Berliner Festspiele, Madrid International Jazz festival, Enjoy Jazz festival, Flagey Piano Days, Brussels Jazz Festival-Flagey, Rudolfinum Prague, Bergamo Jazz festival, Bimhuis, Ars Musica, November Music, Onassis Stegi, Skopje Jazz festival, NFM Wrocław, Piano Days Copenhagen, Ystad Winter jazz festival, Cerkno Jazz festival, Munsterland festival, Handelsbeurs, Jazzahead, Zomer Jazz Fiets tour, Borusan Sanat, Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre, Catania Jazz festival, Synch festival, Thessaloniki Concert Hall and more), but also in special projects like the demanding site-specific concert "634 minutes inside the volcano", where she- together with 14 more musicians- improvised for more than 10 hours inside the crater of Nisyros' island active volcano.

She is much involved in mixed media and her music for video, documentaries and film has travelled to many festivals, museums, galleries and Biennales worldwide. Her concert music has been performed by the Camerata/Armonia Atenea String Orchestra, Dissonart Ensemble, the Athens Youth Orchestra and the Galaxy String Quartet.

In May 2021 Tania was nominated for the Deutscher Jazzpreis- German Jazz Prize- in the category "Piano/Keyboards International" together with Tigran Hamasyan and Shai Maestro.

She is currently collaborating with important musicians of the jazz international scene: Arve Henriksen, Maria Pia De Vito, Michele Rabbia, Daniele Roccato, Amir ElSaffar, Nik Bärtsch, Sun Mi Hong. The Book of Lost Songs, which premiered at Enjoy Jazz Festival 2020 is a vocal electroacoustic project, with singer Maria Pia De Vito and percussionist Michele Rabbia .A new project, HEMERA (Tania Giannouli: piano, Michele Rabbia: percussion, Daniele Rocatto: double bass) premiered in 2022, at Enjoy Jazz festival. Her solo piano concert was premiered at the Kunsthalle Mannheim and has been highly praised by the leading English magazine Jazzwise. Several concerts of her were broadcasted by Deutschlandfunk Kultur, RTBF and ERT. In autumn 2022 she was the artist in residence, together with Nik Bärtsch at Enjoy Jazz festival.

Awards

2021- Nominated for the Deutsche Jazz Preis (German Jazz Prize) in the category Piano/ Keyboards International together with Tigran Hamasian and Shai Maestro.