The final series of concerts at St Canice's Cathedral on the last day of this year's Kilkenny Arts Week features three of the most outstanding pianists in contemporary jazz in Stefano Bollani, John Taylor and Misha Alperin. All are gifted with remarkable technique and the judgment to use it.
Bollani, from Milan, is the youngest, a maverick who has come out of the bop tradition to embrace everything from 20th-century classical music, the Beach Boys, free improvisation and anything else that catches his ear. Lyrical, witty, a bravura, romantic player, he shares with the others an admiration for Bill Evans and the delicacy of a poet in sound.
Taylor, from Manchester, was initially influenced by Oscar Peterson, Herbie Hancock and, especially, Bill Evans, before maturing into the distinctive, much-admired player he is today.
A series of glorious recordings for ECM and CamJazz, among others, have copperfastened his reputation as a master renowned for his subtlety and conceptual strength.
The same combination of virtues, leavened with humour, can be heard in the work of Alperin, Ukrainian-born but now living in Norway. Despite sharing an influence, Bill Evans, with the others, however, he has developed his own voice from his roots in the folk music of Eastern Europe, including the strong Jewish elements there, and in Russian classical music.
