Marilyn Lerner
"..this remarkable pianist has established herself as one of the most exhilarating improvisers in Canada's jazz and new music scenes." - Tamara Bernstein (National Post)
Montreal born pianist Marilyn Lerner is an improviser and composer. She is an explorer who creates her music from a rich inventory of musical influences, including Jazz, Klezmer, New Music, and 20th Century classical music.
Marilyn has performed widely in Canada and abroad and has recorded extensively over the past ten years. She received mention as "Artist deserving greater recognition" in 1993 and won best composition award at the Montreal International Jazz Festival Alcan competition in 1994. Marilyn has collaborated with such luminaries as Sonny Greenwich, Jane Bunnett, Steve Lacy, Tito Puente and Paquito d'Rivera and Gerry Hemingway. She has produced a series of audio art pieces using samples of sounds she collects in the natural environment, and has also written for film, theatre, radio and television.
Marilyn is currently a member of seven performing ensembles in Jazz, Contemporary/Improvised, and World Music: Queen Mab (Marilyn Lerner/Lori Freedman), View Improvising Ensemble (Peggy Lee, Laurie Lyster, db Boyko, Karen Graves, Lori Freedman), Andrew Downing/Jean Martin/Marilyn Lerner trio, Marilyn Lerner-Sonny Greenwich Duo, From Both Ends of The Earth, Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band and Marilyn Lerner/ Dave Wall Duo. She has collaborated with John Stetch, Lorraine Desmarais and François Bourassa and Hilario Duran on a series of pieces for two pianos. Her most recent recordings include the second Queen Mab CD entitled "close" duos and trios (Spool) and a duet with singer David Wall featuring original settings of contemporary Yiddish poetry, entitled "Still Soft Voiced Heart" featured on the New York Label Traditional Crossroads. She is currently working on recording projects with Sonny Greenwich and Peggy Lee and also completing a new solo project.
In the summer of 2000 she toured with Queen Mab (Sound Symposium, St. Johns Newfoundland, the Guelph Jazz Festival, Ottawa and Halifax Jazz Festivals) and with From Both Ends of the Earth (Vancouver, Winnipeg, Victoria, Brandon Folk Festivals). This past summer she performed across Canada, this time with the Flying Bulgars (seven city tour), Sonny Greenwich (Guelph), David Wall (Montreal) . In July she created a soundscape for the new play Corner Green by Gordon Pinsent, in which she used only found sounds.
Last fall she appeared at Casa del Popolo in Montreal with Jean Derome and Danielle Roger, in Toronto at the Music Gallery with David Mott and Victor Bateman and in a piano duo with Hilario Duran in Kingston . Thus far in 2002 she performed at the Time Flies Improvisational Festival ,Vancouver which included Jerry Hemingway, Jessie Zubot, Jorrit Dykstra,, Thomas Lehn, Tony Wilson, Georgio Magnanensi, and Torsten Muller and appeared solo at the Frostbite Festival in Whitehorse . In the spring of 2002 she will perform at Roullette with Lori Freedman in her duo Queen Mab. She is currently in residence at Avatar in Quebec City where she is recording a solo improvised CD and creating an audio piece consisting solely of piano sounds to be realized with Octaphonic spatialization for Sound Travels on Toronto Island in August of 2002.
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