Profile
Long Bio
“The score’s irresistible energy seemed to come from everywhere: classical forms, jazz harmonies, and Arvo Pärt-like meditativeness, were all on tap, and the last bars were pure Romanticism.”
—Allan Kozinn, New York Times (review of Piano Trio No. 1 at MoMA’s Summergarden)
New York-based composer and saxophonist Patrick Zimmerli has been active in jazz and classical music since 1986. With 6 CDs to his credit, he recently completed a Chamber Symphony for the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. He is also writing for and producing a CD featuring jazz pianists Kevin Hays and Brad Mehldau.
In 2007 Zimmerli composed and arranged eight pieces for cello, piano, percussion, and electronics for cellist Kristina Reiko Cooper’s CD Stone & Steel, released on the Koch Label, November 11, 2008. Zimmerli also recently wrote a large-scale solo violin piece for Timothy Fain, which premiered in New York in early 2007 and has since been played at festivals throughout the US and will be recorded for Naxos in late summer.
In 2005 Zimmerli began a concert series, entitled Emergence, dedicated to the creation and performance of new work. The series featured his 9-piece ensemble and each concert featured special guests from the classical, jazz, and electronic music communities. To date there have been 17 performances and over 30 premieres, including excerpts from Zimmerli’s opera-in-progress Lucia, at venues such as Makor, the Triad, Arium, and at Columbia University in New York.
Current commissions include an orchestral piece for the Colorado College Summer Music Festival’s 25th Anniversary Season in 2009, and a piano quintet for the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music in 2010. Other commissions have come from the Ying String Quartet, the Seattle Chamber Music Festival, and the Belgian jazz octet Octurn for whom Zimmerli wrote an hour-length suite, supported by an American Composers’ Forum Composers Commissioning Program grant.
Zimmerli’s Piano Trios were released in August 2004 on the Arabesque label. His ensemble CD, Phoenix, was released on Songlines in June 2005. Excerpts from his Narratives for Solo Piano were recently recorded by Adam Neiman for the Arabesque label. Zimmerli’s work has also been recorded on the Blue Note, Antilles, Jazz City, and Naive labels, and he has written extensively for radio, TV, and film.
From 2002-2005 Zimmerli served as Composer in Residence with the Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra. His music has been performed at MoMA and the Guggenheim Museum, on NPR’s Fresh Sounds, and at the Jazz Composers’ Collective. Awards include first prize in the first annual BMI/Thelonious Monk Institute Composers’ Competition. Zimmerli teaches at Columbia University, where he earned a BA in 1990, an MPhil in 1996 and a DMA in 2000 in Music Composition under Fred Lerdahl. He attended high school in West Hartford, CT.