Tania Giannouli

Greek pianist, composer, improviser and bandleader. She studied classical music (Piano Soloist and Composition diplomas) and Agriculture (MS on Food Technology, AUA). She explores jazz as the most creative music form and regularly employs improvisation in her practice. She makes jazz of the kind where improvisation is just the starting point and somewhere out there - or something deep inside - is the aim. Ιnspired by many different traditions and influences, her music and interdisciplinary projects span an impressive range of styles - a creative and borderless amalgamation of the global today’s reality.


Her genre-defying "open sound language" is often described as lyrical, inspired, complex, eclectic, intoxicating and highly original. As the Korean magazine Jazzspace has written: “This music invites the listener to dream of eternity.”

Her imaginative, explorative musical nature has led to five unique recording collaborations, all released on New Zealand's foremost art-music label, Rattle Records: Forest Stories (2012, with Portuguese wind player, Paulo Chagas), Transcendence (2015, featuring works composed for her Tania Giannouli Ensemble), Rewa (2018, a critically acclaimed, entirely improvised collaboration with traditional Maori instrumentalist, Rob Thorne), In Fading Light (2020, an unexpected trio with trumpet player Andreas Polyzogopoulos and oud player Kyriakos Tapakis) and Solo (2023, her first solo piano album, which has been gathering unanimously ecstatic reviews). All five albums received wide international acclaim and were included in numerous ‘Best of’ lists, with Transcendence cited as one of the most important Greek albums of the decade according to many Greek media. In 2024, she was one of the ten composers to contribute to the compilation album Piano Day Vol.3 (LEITER) after an invitation of Piano Day and Nils Frahm, its’ founder. 

She has performed at several venues and festivals in Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Spain, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Poland, the Czech Republic, Turkey, Italy, Slovenia, Romania, Skopje, Mauritius, Greece (among others: Jazzfest Berlin- Berliner Festspiele, Madrid International Jazz festival, Enjoy Jazz festival, Flagey Piano Days, Brussels Jazz Festival-Flagey, Bozar, Rudolfinum Prague, Trondheim Jazzfest, Maijazz, Bergamo Jazz festival, Bimhuis, Ars Musica, November Music, Onassis Stegi, Skopje Jazz festival, NFM Wrocław, NDR Jazz Series, Piano Days Copenhagen, Ystad Winter jazz festival, Cerkno Jazz festival, Munsterland festival, Handelsbeurs, Jazzahead, Mamajaz, Zomer Jazz Fiets tour, Borusan Sanat, Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre, Catania Jazz festival, Synch festival, Thessaloniki Concert Hall and more), but also in special projects like the demanding site-specific concert "634 minutes inside the volcano", where she- together with 14 more musicians- improvised for more than 10 hours inside the crater of Nisyros' island active volcano.

She is much involved in mixed media and her music for video, documentaries and film has travelled to many festivals, museums, galleries and Biennales worldwide. Her concert music has been performed by the Camerata/Armonia Atenea String Orchestra, Dissonart Ensemble, the Athens Youth Orchestra and the Galaxy String Quartet.

In May 2021 Tania was nominated for the Deutscher Jazzpreis- German Jazz Prize- in the category "Piano/Keyboards International" together with Tigran Hamasyan and Shai Maestro. In September 2023 she received the Art & Culture award by Greek International Women Awards. The annual critic's poll Top Jazz, which is held by the Italian magazine Musica Jazz since 1982 (one of the most important polls in Europe) proclaimed her New International Talent for the year 2023.

She is currently collaborating with highly regarded musicians of the jazz international scene: Arve Henriksen (in duo), Maria Pia De Vito ( The Book of Lost Songs), Michele Rabbia and Daniele Roccato (Hemera), Amir ElSaffar (AES new quartet), Nik Bärtsch (in duo), Sun Mi Hong (in duo). Her solo piano concert was premiered at the Kunsthalle Mannheim and has been highly praised by the leading English magazine Jazzwise. Several concerts of her were broadcasted by Deutschlandfunk Kultur, NDR, RTBF, rbbKultur, Klara and ERT. In autumn 2022 she was the artist in residence, together with Nik Bärtsch at Enjoy Jazz festival.

“If Sun Ra and Carla Bley went on a blind date with Cecil Taylor and Joanne Brackeen, their mythical love-child may have been named Tania.” - Donald Brackett, Critics At Large (CA)

Awards

2023- She received the Art & Culture award by Greek International Women Awards (GIWA)

"New International Talent" for the year 2023 by the annual critic's poll Top Jazz, which is held by the Italian magazine Musica Jazz since 1982 (one of the most important polls in Europe).

2021- Nominated for the Deutsche Jazz Preis (German Jazz Prize) in the category Piano/ Keyboards International together with Tigran Hamasian and Shai Maestro.