Bill Laurance – Lumen (Solo Piano Concert)

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El Rincón del Jazz welcomes Bill Laurance, pianist, composer, and founding member of Snarky Puppy, a group with which he has won five Grammy Awards. With a solid classical background and a career marked by the exploration of new musical languages, Laurance has established himself as one of the most distinctive figures in contemporary jazz, developing a career that moves naturally between composition, improvisation, and collaboration with major orchestras and artists such as Michael League. In this exclusive engagement he will present "Lumen", his latest album, recorded entirely on solo piano in the intimacy of a London church. The album brings together compositions and improvisations that interact with the space, the silence, and the acoustics of the venue, shaping a proposal of great expressive depth, characterized by an intimate and contemplative nature. Bill Laurance – "Lumen" In "Lumen", Bill Laurance strips away any artifice to return to the essence of his music. The pianist, composer, and founding member of Snarky Puppy recorded this work over two days of complete isolation in St Faith's Church, in the south of London, a space whose acoustics and atmosphere profoundly shaped the character of the album. Far from the hustle and bustle and the technological sophistication that have accompanied other projects in his career, Laurance faces the solo piano here as an exercise in listening, freedom, and trust. “I wanted to capture the music that emerges when you stop trying to control every detail and allow the music itself to show the way,” the musician has explained about a creative process in which composition and improvisation coexist naturally. The result is neither an exclusively improvised record nor a fully written one. Lumen finds its identity precisely in that middle ground where structure and spontaneity live side by side, reflecting the artistic maturity of a creator accustomed to dialogue with other musicians, whether in Snarky Puppy, alongside Michael League, or in his orchestral projects, but who on this occasion takes on the challenge of confronting only himself and the expressive possibilities of the piano. To broaden the album’s sonic palette, Laurance alternates the sound of a grand piano with that of a felted piano, whose more intimate, velvety timbre brings new nuances to compositions that move between impressionistic delicacy, rhythmic intensity, and freer improvisation. More than a collection of pieces, Lumen is an experience of introspection. A deeply human work that explores silence, melody, and space with uncommon honesty, and that confirms Bill Laurance as one of the most creative and distinctive pianists in contemporary jazz. His concert at El Rincón del Jazz will make it possible to discover live this essential side of an artist who has found in solo piano a new form of expression.