Dan Tepfer

Bio

As one of his generation’s extraordinary talents, Dan Tepfer has earned an international reputation for being a pianist-composer of wide-ranging innovation, individuality and drive. Tepfer has been hailed as “a player of exceptional poise” by The New York Times, while Downbeat extolled his “ability to disappear into the music as he’s making it.” The New York City-based pianist, born in 1982 in Paris to American parents, has recorded and performed around the world with some of the leading lights in jazz and classical music, from Lee Konitz to Renée Fleming. He has released 11 albums of his own in solo, duo and trio formats. Tepfer has used technology to reach new listeners in new ways with new music. The pianist’s 2018 video album, Natural Machines, stands as one of his most ingeniously forward-minded efforts yet. Performed on the Yamaha Disklavier, the project saw him exploring in real time the intersection between science and art, coding and improvisation, digital algorithms and the rhythms of the heart. Tepfer’s most recent jazz recordings as a leader or co-leader include a second duo album with Konitz, Decade (Impulse/Universal, 2018), the culmination of 10 years working alongside one of jazz’s singular improvisers. The pianist’s trio disc Eleven Cages, released in 2017 via Sunnyside Records, featured him in league with bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Nate Wood. The UK’sJazzwise magazine called Eleven Cages “one of the very best essays in contemporary piano-trio jazz you’ll hear all year.” Tepfer’s other collaborations include a disc with Parisian vocalist Camille Bertault, Pas de Géant(OKeh/Sony, 2017), as well as a multi-tracked duo album with reeds player Ben Wendel, Small Constructions (Sunnyside, 2013). As a composer, Tepfer has written music for various ensembles beyond jazz. His piano quintet Solar Spiral was premiered in 2016 at Chicago’s Ravinia Festival, with Tepfer performing alongside the Avalon String Quartet. Tepfer has received commissions from the Prague Castle Guard Orchestra for two works: the suite Algorithmic Transform (2015) and a concerto for symphonic wind band and improvising piano, The View from Orohena (2010). In 2019, Tepfer unveiled his jazz-trio arrangement of Stravinsky’s Baroque-channelingPulcinella