Patrick Zimmerli is a New York- and Paris-based composer, producer, and saxophonist. His latest album, Letters From the Front, a cycle of 18 songs for SATB soloists and piano based on letters written by soldiers from all the American wars through history, was released on July 3, 2026 and was premiered on August 19 at the Brown ChamberFest in Indiana. Zimmerli currently holds the Gilmore Festival Commission for a work for Percussion and Piano for Ian Rosenbaum and Orion Weiss, to be premiered in May 2027.
His album Sun on Sand, with Joshua Redman and the string quartet Brooklyn Rider, was released on Nonesuch Recordings and was selected among the “Best Albums of 2019” by AllMusicGuide. This marked his third collaboration with Nonesuch, following Modern Music, his two-piano album featuring Kevin Hays and Brad Mehldau, and Redman’s Walking Shadows.
Since winning the inaugural Thelonious Monk Composers Competition in 1993, Zimmerli has specialized in large-scale projects and commissions. He has released 16 albums of his own music, and has written, recorded and performed with many leading lights in the classical and jazz worlds.
His 30-minute long, 5-movement piece for large orchestra and jazz pianist, Songbook Impressions, was premiered in June 2026 by Yaron Herman and the Tonkunstler Orkester under Fabien Gabel, at the iconic Wolkenturm at Schloss Grafenegg near Vienna, Austria.
In 2024 he was awarded a Copland Fund grant to support the release of his album Messages. An evening-length jazz/classical suite for 4 saxophones and rhythm section, the album featured Zimmerli alongside saxophonists Chris Potter, Steve Wilson, and Ron Blake; the music was performed at Dizzy’s in NYC, the DC Jazz Festival, and many other venues in US and Europe.
Zimmerli’s recently-completed full length opera, Lucia Joyce, was previewed at the Irish Embassy in spring 2025; it received its Dublin premiere in April 2026. Upcoming commissions include a Gilmore Foundation commission for a work for piano and percussion for their 2027 season; other recent commissions include a Concerto for Flute and Jazz Percussion for Jasmine Choi, Satoshi Takeishi and the New York Classical Players.
Zimmerli has written numerous orchestral, chamber and choral works, including a Chamber Symphony for the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, two four-movement Piano Trios for the Seattle Chamber Music Festival, and two large-scale Piano Concertos with jazz percussion, for Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra with pianists Ethan Iverson and Sonia Rubinsky.
Other large-scale pieces include Clockworks, a Chamber Music America Commission featuring Zimmerli, Ethan Iverson, Chris Tordini, and John Hollenbeck, premiered at (le) Poisson Rouge and released on CD in 2018. In 2017 he wrote Alan Seeger: Instrument of Destiny, an oratorio for male choir, operatic tenor, jazz percussion and piano, premiered at the Invalides Cathedral in Paris, reprised in Reims, at the Fondation Boghossian in Brussels, and New York’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine. This work spawned a radio program with narration by NPR’s Scott Simon, aired on NPR stations on Memorial Day 2021.
Zimmerli’s music has been performed at Carnegie Hall and Town Hall in New York, Wigmore Hall in London, Salle Pleyel in Paris, Sala São Paolo in Brazil, the Vienna Konzerthaus Grosser Saal, the SF Jazz Center, and the Centre Pompidou, Salle Pleyel, the Philharmonie, and other venues in Paris. His music has been featured at MoMA and the Guggenheim Museum, on NPR and WQXR, and has been released on the Naxos, Blue Note, Arabesque, Songlines, and Naïve labels. He has taught at the Paris Conservatoire, Sciences Po, and Columbia University, where he holds a DMA in Composition.