Nik Bärtsch's Mobile

Keyboardist Nik Bärtsch (at times spelled "Baertsch") is a player, composer, and improviser very much in the style of European classical-oriented jazz, but he's created a language that transcends these basic categories. A native and resident of Zurich, Switzerland born in 1971, he began his nine-year piano studies at age nine, and briefly took up clarinet. Listening to blues, jazz, and string quartets, Béla Bartók, Igor Stravinsky, and ethnic musics from Japan, Greece, Romania, and Sweden, has shaped his personalized music. Initially influenced by Chick Corea, Bärtsch attended...