“…and the living is easy”

Jazzy summer evening with Edgar Marc Petter

 

Although he started singing „correctly“ (as his mother confirms) at the tender age of two, Swiss jazz pianist Edgar Marc Petter has made the piano his most beloved instrument. Making the piano sing (not only swing!) has, however, remained one of the hallmarks of his style. Regardless of whether he plays well-known standard tunes from the „Great American Songbook“ or one of his own compositions, he has developed his own unmistakable musical identity. Without losing touch with the vital jazz heritage in North America, he has succeeded in harmonizing the granite determination of his own Alpine native country with the impressionist art of the Mediterranean countries he loves to visit.

 

Edgar Marc Petter will be performing on Tuseday, June 27, 2006 8 pm at the Goethe Institute in Boston. Consulate of Switzerland – SHARE Boston is sponsoring some Mediterranean slow food and American beverages.

 

 

Biography

 

Edgar Marc Petter was born in Zurich, Switzerland, and started playing the piano when he was seven years old. He was trained as a classical pianist, and then discovered rock music as a teenager. But it was not until he heard Oscar Peterson and Keith Jarrett, his then heroes, that he found the music in which he was to express himself best.

 

But first he immersed himself in his second passion, foreign languages. He studied English literature and lingusitics, French linguistics and educational psychology at the University of Zurich, then started teaching, only to return to jazz music a few years later.

 

He now holds two master degrees in languages and music. He teaches English as a foreign language at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences in Winterthur, Switzerland. He also works as a freelance pianist, composer and arranger.

 

Besides playing and recording with his own groups, he has performed in a variety of musical contexts ranging from solo to big band concerts in Switzerland and other countries in Europe.  He has also conducted several vocal and big band ensembles as well as band workshops.

 

He is currently performing with his own quartet „urban spaces“ (saxes, piano, bass, drums) and  with „q4jazz(plus)“ (saxes, piano, e-bass, drums, plus vocals).