Swiss pianist and composer Sylvie Courvoisier has been a defining figure on the contemporary jazz scene for 20 years and is at the epicentre of the New York music scene.

Having just been awarded the prestigious Swiss Grand Prize for Music 2025, she now presents her duo album with the legendary Wadada Leo Smith.

This follows the recent acclaimed release of her solo album To Be Other-Wise and the atmospherically multi-layered sextet album Chimaera.

An exceptional musician, Smith is always at the pulse of the times, celebrating musical diversity and creativity and speaks out against any labelling of his work. He has helped shape the development of music in various contexts over the last 50 years.

Angel Falls (due out October 3rd, 2025) exudes the magic of musical freedom, possesses an astonishing immediacy, and has a captivating sense of dazzling sound architecture. “They both sound great. They complement each other without resorting to obvious moves. There is no ‘comping’, no showmanship, just a constant feeling of continuous calibration, quirky elements that are somehow perfectly balanced. How do they do it?” writes John Sharpe in the liner notes.

1. Olo’Upnea and lightning
2. Naomi Peak
3. Whispering Images
4. A Line Through Time
5. Vireo Bellii
6. Angel Falls
7. Sonic Utterance
8. Kairos

In music as in life, Courvoisier crosses borders with a creative spirit and a free mind; her music-making is as playful as it is intense, as steeped in tradition as it is questing and intrepid, and thus this wholly impassioned new recording opens on the organically beholden, and sumptuously confluent Olo’Upnea and lightning and then we get the playfully strident Naomi Peak, a languishing beauty that veins through Whispering Images, and the sober toned A Line Through Time.

And with American trumpeter and composer Smith bringing his esteemed creativity to the fore in stunning style, up next is the flirtatiously perfect Vireo Bellii which is itself followed perfectly by the demurely elegant title track Angel Falls, the set rounding out on the sharply cornered at times, yet mellow and wafting at others Sonic Utterance, closing on the formidably structured decadence of Kairos.

Musicians:
Sylvie Courvoisier: Piano, Composition
Wadada Leo Smith: Trumpet, Composition

Official Purchase Link

www.sylviecourvoisier.com

Sylvie Courvoisier @ Facebook

www.wadadaleosmith.com