Pianist Michael Jefry Stevens has been active on the international jazz scene for the past four decades.
Michael has released more than 100 CD recordings featuring his own music, and has performed and recorded extensively with many of the top names in jazz, including Dave Liebman, Oliver Lake, Dave Douglas, Leo Smith, Matt Wilson, Han Bennink, Steve Wilson, Jeanne Lee, Dakota Staton, Charles Moffett Sr., George Schuller, Dame Evelyn Glennie, and many others.
Stevens’ residencies include the Margaret Lee Crofts Fellow at the MacDowell Colony. He was a Centrum Arts composer fellow in 2004. He was artist in residence at EMU Conservatory in La Plata, Argentina, between 2005 and 2010.
He has taught masterclasses at the Royal Academy of Music in Denmark, Sibelius Academy in Finland, University of Michigan, Indiana University, and many other educational institutions in Europe, Latin America, and North America. He received his M.A. in Jazz from Queens College, CUNY, and was on the music faculties of Five Towns College, NY, Rhodes College, TN, and most recently Eastern Tennessee State University. His latest recording, Reunion, was released in 2020 on the Artist Recording Collective label.
As a composer, Stevens has written over 400 compositions in a variety of styles, including music for string quartet, big band, voice, solo instruments and small ensembles. Over 150 of these pieces have been recorded and are available at his website.
For more than five decades, Michael Jefry Stevens has been a pianist, composer and central voice in New York and international improvised music. His first CD release arrived in 1991, beginning a recording career that now includes more than 100 albums featuring his music.
From 1988 to 1990, Michael co-led the Mosaic Sextet with Dave Douglas, Mark Feldman, Michael Rabinowitz, Harvey Sorgen and Joe Fonda. Their recording Today This Moment is recognised as a classic of 1990s modern jazz and was selected among the 1,000 best jazz recordings in the 2011 Penguin Guide to Jazz.
The Mosaic rhythm section became the nucleus of the Fonda/Stevens Group, which has released 14 CDs and toured Europe repeatedly since 1992. In 1999, Michael began the Conference Call Quartet with German saxophonist Gebhard Ullmann and drummer George Schuller. The quartet has released eight recordings over two decades.
In 2016, Michael was named Best Composer of WNC by Mountain Xpress. He received a Doris Duke Foundation Performing Artist Recovery Fund grant in 2021, alongside support from the North Carolina Arts Council and Mountain Bizworks. Recent projects include Eastern Boundary, his partnership with Brian “Breeze” Cayolle, Generations Quartet with Oliver Lake, and Quartet South with Michael Rabinowitz.
Michael was the Margaret Lee Crofts Fellow at the MacDowell Colony from 2000 to 2001 and a Centrum Arts composer fellow in 2004. He was artist in residence at EMU Conservatory in La Plata, Argentina, from 2005 to 2010, and has taught throughout North America, Europe and Latin America, including faculty appointments at Rhodes College and East Tennessee State University.
On craft, teaching and a working life in jazz.
Read interviewOn original music, formative collaborations and a life of exploration.
Read interviewOn melody, voice and the choices behind a recording life.
Read interview“Pianist Michael Jefry Stevens blends a pliable rhythmic and melodic sense with a mercurial technique that serves him well.”
“Stevens is a thinking man’s player.”
“Stevens probably does his most profound work as a composer.”
“Fluently communicative and sophisticatedly instinctive, Stevens and Ullmann complete a superb combination.”
“The humble Stevens gives the music just what makes it exciting and accessible at the same time.”
“What About the Future” ended up being the concert’s highlight.