Patrick Zimmerli

Patrick Zimmerli

Patrick Zimmerli is a jazz and classical composer, saxophonist, and producer. His CD Sun on Sand, with Joshua Redman and the string quartet Brooklyn Rider, was released on Nonesuch Recordings and voted one of AllMusic’s Best Albums of 2019. This marks his third collaboration with Nonesuch, following Modern Music, with Kevin Hays and Brad Mehldau, and Redman’s Walking Shadows. In 2021 he released Book of Dreams, an album of music for jazz trio, on Newvelle Recordings; this album is being released in its full digital format in 2023.

Since winning the inaugural Thelonious Monk Composers Competition in 1993, Zimmerli has written, recorded and performed with leading lights in the classical and jazz worlds, among them the Lincoln Trio, Chris Potter, Kent Tritle, Scott Yoo, Aaron Diehl, Samara Joy, Ethan Iverson, Luciana Souza, the Knights Orchestra, and the Ying String Quartet. His music has been performed at Carnegie Hall, Town Hall and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, Ravinia in Chicago, Wigmore Hall in London, Salle Pleyel and the Cathedral des Invalides in Paris, Sala São Paolo in Brazil, the Vienna Konzerthaus Grosser Saal, and SF Jazz Center, among many other venues. 

Recent projects include Messages, a commission from the Seattle Commissioning Club for an evening-length work for saxophone quartet + jazz trio, premiered in Paris in 2019 and performed in New York, Washington DC, and Portsmouth, NH in 2022; it was reprised at Lincoln Center and recorded in September 2023.

During the COVID crisis Zimmerli, along with Tech Leader Kent Savage, created a “Virtual Venue” concept, featuring musicians filmed in different places around the world, using filmic techniques to make it seem like they were playing together. The success of the pilot, Children of Bronzeville, featuring songs based Gwendolyn Brooks poems, spawned video collaborations with such artists as Kurt Elling, Shelly Berg, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Tierney Sutton, Niki Harris, and John Daversa. Children of Bronzeville is currently being produced as a video/documentary for Savage Content, with vocalists Samara Joy, Vanisha Gould, and Joshua Banbury, along with pianists Helen Sung and Aaron Diehl.

Pre-COVID projects include Alan Seeger: Instrument of Destiny, an oratorio for male choir, vocal solo, jazz percussion and piano, premiered at the Invalides Cathedral in Paris; it was reprised in Reims and at the Fondation Boghossian in Brussels, with a New York premiere at Cathedral of St. John the Divine in November, 2019.  A radio program was created from the work with narration by NPR’s Scott Simon, that was aired on over 50 NPR stations nationwide on Memorial Day 2021.

Other recent projects include Views of Chicago, an under-construction “multi-composition” of nine pieces for nine ensembles across many genres in the Chicago area, including the Lincoln Trio, the Geoff Bradfield Nonet, Eighth Blackbird, Chicago A Cappella, and Rachel Barton Pine. Zimmerli also wrote a Concerto for Flute and Jazz Percussion for Jasmine Choi and the New York Classical Players, premiered in early 2020; and Clockworks, a Chamber Music America Commission, premiered at (le) Poisson Rouge and released on the Songlines label in 2018. 

From 2016-17 Zimmerli curated the INTERSECT festival in NYC’s Bryant Park, and developed a TV series juxtaposing old and new music for National Sawdust and WNET. He also created a site-specific piece entitled Waterfall/Gathering Pools for the Centre Pompidou in Paris with the Paris Percussion Group. His extensive catalog also includes two four-movement Piano Trios and two Piano Concertos with jazz percussion.

Currently Zimmerli is at work on a full-length opera on the life of James Joyce’s daughter, Lucia Joyce. A staged reading of the piece is planned for January, 2024 at the Irish Arts Center in New York, and in March at the Irish Cultural Center in Paris.. He has taught at the Paris Conservatoire, Sciences Po, and Columbia University, where he holds a DMA in Composition.

Musical excerpts: www.patrickzimmerli.com

Dissertation
Composer and audience, 2000: Learning to compose
Columbia Degrees: 
DMA, Composition
2000