Irene Schweizer

Irène Schweizer (born 2 June 1941) is a Swiss jazz and free improvising pianist. She was born in Schaffhausen, Switzerland.She has performed and recorded numerous solo piano performances as well as performing as part of the Feminist Improvising Group, whose members include Lindsay Cooper, Maggie Nichols, Georgie Born and Sally Potter. She has also performed a series of duets with drummers Pierre Favre, Louis Moholo, Andrew Cyrille, Günter Sommer, Han Bennink, Hamid Drake, as well as in trio and quartet sessions with others, including John Tchicai, Evan Parker and Peter Kowald. With Yusef Lateef, Uli Trepte and Mani Neumeier, she performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1967. One of her most enduring collaborations is with the improvising musician Rüdiger Carl.In 2016, on the occasion of Schweizer's 75th birthday, Broecking Verlag and the music department of the Lucerne University published (in German) an authorized biography titled This Uncontainable Feeling of Freedom: Irène Schweizer – European Jazz and the Politics of Improvisation, written by Christian Broecking. An English translation was published in 2021.