Stefano Bollani was born in 1972 in Milan and began playing piano at age 6, enrolling in Florence’s Cherubini Conservatory five years later. He first performed professionally at 15, initially in pop contexts. He began playing with Enrico Rava in 1996, confirming a deeper commitment to jazz. Since then, he has played with Pat Metheny, Martial Solal, Lee Konitz, Phil Woods, Gato Barbieri, Miroslav Vitouš, Richard Galliano, Michel Portal and Roberto Gatto, among others. Bollani has recorded for ECM since 2003, starting with a sequence of albums with Rava: Easy Living (with an all-Italian quintet), Tati (trio with Paul Motian), The Third Man (duo) and New York Days (quintet with Motian, Mark Turner and Larry Grenadier). Bollani made his ECM debut under his own name with Piano Solo in 2007, then released the trio disc Stone In The Water with Jesper Bodlisen and Morten Lund in 2009. The pianist has also made duo albums for ECM with Chick Corea (Orvieto) and Hamilton de Holanda (O Que Sera).
Bollani has also recorded two collections of orchestral works for Decca with Leipzig’s Gewandhausorchester conducted by Riccardo Chailly, one featuring the works of George Gershwin and the other, Sounds of the ’30s, including Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G along with works by Stravinsky, Kurt Weill and Victor de Sabata. He has also composed for big band, and published a novel (La Sindrome di Brontolo, 2006). Among his awards is the European Jazz Prize as Musician of the Year for 2007.

Founded in 1882, the Berliner Philharmoniker have been among the world’s most eminent orchestras for a long time. In the first decades, the defining chief conductors were Hans von Bülow, Arthur Nikisch and Wilhelm Furtwängler, followed by Herbert von Karajan in 1955 and Claudio Abbado in 1989. In September 2002, Sir Simon Rattle assumed the post. Kirill Petrenko will succeed him in 2019.
Since 1963 the pentagonal-shaped concert hall the Berliner Philharmonie is the home of the Berliner Philharmoniker, which consists of a great hall and a chamber music hall. This is the first hall in which the orchestra is placed in the center, surrounded by the audience.
In 2008, the orchestra officially announced a unique, innovative project: the Digital Concert Hall, which broadcasts the orchestra’s concerts live via internet.

Bassist Jesper Bodilsen has a preeminent gift for choosing musical partners. For example, it was Jesper who released some of STUNT Records’ bestselling recordings to date: the two trio albums MI RITORNI IN MENTE (2003) and GLEDA (2005), where he plays with the extraordinary Italian pianist Stefano Bollani and drummer Morten Lund - a collaboration that continues with concerts around the world and releases on ECM. Now, Jesper Bodilsen has once again put together a trio in an international format, together with the 30-year-old Catalan Marco Mezquida, originally from Minorca - Spain’s new star pianist - who captivates everyone with his incredible touch and musical dexterity. On drums, the trio is completed by Martin Andersen, who for a number of years has been among Denmark’s greatest drummers, and is perhaps best known for his work in Pierre Dørge’s New Jungle Orchestra. Andersen and Bodilsen also originate from the same town in Denmark (Haslev), where they played together before their careers took off.

"What this Nice-born Parisian coaxes out of the piano accordion is something the likes of which has never been heard before. You can tell it is a future legend who is playing here!" – Süddeutsche Zeitung.
The French accordion player, singer and composer Vincent Peirani was born on 24.4.1980 in Nice. At the age of 11 he began playing the accordion, initially classical music. As a teenager he already won numerous international awards. At 16 he discovered jazz and soon took up the study of jazz in Paris. At the beginning he faced scepticism with his accordion and his classical training, but he quickly convinced the critics with an entirely new way of looking at the instrument, made a name for himself in France's jazz scene and was soon playing with the creme de la creme of French jazz, the likes of Michel Portal, Daniel Humair, Renaud Garcia Fons, Louis Sclavis and Vincent Courtois. Parallel to that he pursued many of his own projects, drawing from the widest range of genres – from jazz, chanson and world music through to classic and even heavy rock. Since 2011, Peirani has been playing regularly in the quartet of the Korean singer Youn Sun Nah, the most successful female jazz artist in France in recent years. Through this engagement he also made the acquaintance of Swedish guitarist Ulf Wakenius and ultimately the boss of the ACT label Siggi Loch. Peirani played on the Wakenius album "Vagabond" recorded in February 2012, also astonishing and enthralling live audiences everywhere. "Thrill Box" came out in May 2013 and was Vincent Peirani's first album as a leader – star-studded with pianist Michael Wollny, bassist Michel Benita and saxophonists Michel Portal and Émile Parisien. The album showcases the entire wealth of facets of Peirani's musical influences, and reveals more impressively than ever before what an intelligent and artful composer he is, and what a masterful and profoundly musical instrumentalist and storyteller.