New triple album coming out after the summer, completed by many original extras.
For more detailed info on the overall project, check-out the press release text further down. Various video snippets and photos about it will also be posted in the coming weeks on my social medias. Stay tuned!
Leo
Since the release of Dawnscape, in 2014, Leo Tardin has recorded more than twenty solo piano concerts to publish Collection, a triple album, to be released on October 5th 2018 with many original extras (a songbook, video tutorials and downloadable alternate takes).
A concept album? A new conception of the album!
“In the era of streaming, the public chooses first and foremost tracks.” It’s hard to confound Leo Tardin, who has matured his project accordingly. Available in several versions, the titles appear in multiple forms, transfigured by the atmosphere of certain places, moved by the singularity of each instrument, renewed by the spontaneity of the improvisations. While it can be listened to in an un-truncated and orderly way – the old-fashioned way, let’s say – the work that its author presents as a notebook of memories invites the listeners to make and redo their own selection according to the moments. They can even materialize their ideal album by ordering a personalized and autographed CD from the musician.
In an empty pool, a disused factory or a century-old cellar; out of twenty instruments of different brands, a piano slightly out of tune or a Fender Rhodes; in front of numerous festival-goers, a confidential audience or some passers-by, Léo Tardin has experienced how the environment influences his playing and his repertoire, making each of his concerts a unique performance, whose recordings have captured its ephemeral charm. From an artist’s solitary journey with his compositions, from this meditative and meticulous experience, this project is undoubtedly one of the most audacious testimonies.
Forever the only ones: unique takes and total improvisations
In the midst of songs that seem strangely familiar, such as “Ouverture”, a live re-interpretation of the first title of Dawnscape, or “Have You Ever Seen”, a solo version of the Grand Pianoramax hit, listeners will discover what a happy few have witnessed here and there. Something happened at the Théâtre de l’Oriental (Vevey) when, inspired by the clatter of rain and the reverb of a stairwell, Léo Tardin embarked on an improvisation “Out of Nowhere”. Something happened at the Théâtre Les Salons (Geneva), when, for the first time in public, he unfurled the sinuous arpeggios and punctuated the refined paradiddles of the introduction of “Variations on a Knight’s Tale”, which he reverently has not replayed since this irreversible baptism. Small moments of eternity.
On the other side of the keyboard
The ostinatos, the grace notes, the tempo nuances and the freedom with which he revisits the tonal harmony are characteristic features in Leo Tardin’s playing and compositions that bring him closer to both baroque music and perhaps the most influential musician: Keith Jarrett. For the pianists for whom Leo Tardin is a source of inspiration, whether beginners or experienced, the young teacher of the ETM music school in Geneva also created a series of tutorials filmed in unusual places (a car demolition site, the top of mount Salève, a pneumatic boat floating in the middle of the Rhone river, etc.), which expose the “skeleton” of the eight pieces which he has played most often. A songbook containing the scores of these pieces will be available, and on request, so will be a handwritten facsimile.
Short Biography
The first winner in 1999 of the prestigious Montreux Jazz Festival International Solo Piano Competition – and the only Swiss to have won it so far – Leo Tardin announced the dawn of a new generation of Swiss pianists. After publishing five albums with his Grand Pianoramax project, with which he has performed all over the world (Tokyo Jazz Festival, Nyon Paleo Festival, CMJ Music Marathon New York, Akbank Jazz Festival Istanbul, etc.). ), the Genevan musician devoted himself more and more exclusively to his new solo project in order to release his second album after Dawnscape.
Leo Tardin has also collaborated with many artists, including Roy Ayers, Erik Truffaz, Burhan Öçal, Maria João, Paula Oliveira and, more recently, Arthur Henry.
Text by Michael Roelli.