Talk by Eve Risser with Dylan van der Schyff
- Eve Risser
- Dylan van der Schyff
As part of the Vancouver International Jazz Festival, join us for a conversation with French musician, composer, and improviser Eve Risser. Renowned for her visionary approach to sound and the prepared piano, Risser will explore her creative process, influences, and the role of improvisation in contemporary music. The talk, moderated by scholar and percussionist Dylan van der Schyff, will blend conversation with live musical improvisation, offering rich insight into her artistic practice through both words and sound.
About the Artists
Eve Risser is a composer and improviser from Colmar, France, celebrated for her poetic, corporeal approach to the prepared piano. Deeply embedded in Europe’s improvised music scenes, she moves fluidly between solo, ensemble, and orchestral settings. A former member of the Orchestre National de Jazz (2009–2013), Risser performs on prepared piano, leads the twelve-piece Red Desert Orchestra, and is active in groups such as En Corps, Aw Be Yonbolo, and Brique. Unfolding with organic, dreamlike momentum, Risser’s most recent solo album, Après un Rêve (Clean Feed, 2019) showcases her open-ended approach to experimentation.
Dylan van der Schyff is a scholar and percussionist based in Vancouver, Canada and Melbourne, Australia. Van der Schyff has contributed to recordings spanning the fields of jazz, free improvisation, sound art, experimental, electronic, and new music. He has toured extensively in North America and Europe, and has collaborated in numerous interdisciplinary projects involving theatre, dance, and film. Van der Schyff is associate professor in music at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, where his research focuses on developing possibilities for thought and action in practical areas such as improvisation and creativity, performance, and music education.
Accessibility
The Grand Luxe Hall is located on the second floor of Western Front, which is accessed by a flight of 26 stairs. While plans for a full building upgrade to facilitate access for wheelchair users are still underway, all events in the Grand Luxe Hall are made available virtually via high-quality livestream (see link above). Further details about accessibility at Western Front can be found here.
Acknowledgements
Presented in partnership with Coastal Jazz with support from Institut français du Canada, Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada, and SOCAN Foundation.
Western Front is a non-profit artist-run centre in Vancouver.
We acknowledge the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations as traditional owners of the land upon which Western Front stands.