Stéphan Oliva

Stéphan Oliva

Stéphan Oliva (* 1959 in Montmorency ) is a French jazz pianist and composer.

Live and act

Oliva received his first private lessons from a professor of piano at the age of eleven (where he was already composing) and from 1975 attended the École Normale de Musique in Paris , where he studied with Georges Delvallée and came into contact with jazz through the pianist Eric Watson . His resolve to become a jazz musician was cemented when he heard the Bill Evans trio on a trip to New York and Montreal in 1978 . In 1985 he founded his first trio with Bruno Chevillon on bass and Jean-Pierre Jullian on drums. In 1987 he founded a trio with saxophonist Thierry Maucci and violinist Christian Zagaria. In the early 1990s he had made a name for himself both with his trios and as a composer. He recorded his debut album “Novembre” on “OWL Records” in a trio with Jean-Pierre Jullian and bassist Claude Tchamitchian , and in 1992 received the Django d'Or (France) for best “New Talent”. This was followed by a solo record "Clair obscur" and in a trio with Chevillon and François Merville on drums "Jade Visions", a tribute to Bill Evans.

After he was involved in an album "Jazz´n (e) motions", in which they improvised on the piano on film music themes, the filmmaker Jacques Maillot invited him to compose the music for his film "Froid comme l´été".

In a duo with the pianist François Raulin , he played the music of Lennie Tristano , which resulted in the 1997 album "Sept variations sur Lennie Tristano", which received the Boris Vian Prix . In 2001 he formed a quartet with the saxophonist Matthieu Donarien , the bassist Guillaume Séguron and Jullian . In 2003 he recorded “Itinéraire Imaginaire” with Donarian , Chevillon, the clarinetist Jean-Marc Foltz and the drummer Nicolas Larmignat. Since 2003 he has also accompanied the singer Linda Sharrock (in a trio with Tchamitchian) and the singer Susanne Abbuehl . In 2005 his solo album "Coïncidences" was released, for which he was inspired by the writer Paul Auster . According to his own statements, literary references are an important source for his compositions alongside the film. In 2007 his solo album “Ghosts of Bernard Herrmann ” was released (as a homage to the film composer by Alfred Hitchcock , Martin Scorsese , Orson Welles and others), the 2011 album Film noir , 2013 Lives of Bernard Herrmann and 2017 Prince (Vision Fugitive, with Susanne Abbuehl and Øyvind Hegg-Lunde ; Grand Prix du Disque ) followed. He also worked with the Jazztet of Bernard Struber .

He is currently teaching at the Strasbourg Conservatory .

Filmography (selection)

• 2001: All alone (Froid comme l'été)
• 2008: Rivals (Les liens du sang)
• 2009: Today I didn't drink (Un singe sur le dos)
• 2012: La mer à boire

Web links

Commons : Category: Stephan Oliva  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

• Works by and about Stéphan Oliva in the catalog of the German National Library
• Stéphan Oliva's website
• Oliva on pianobleu.com , with detailed quotations (French)
• Stéphan Oliva in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ pianobleu