{"id":82,"date":"2013-01-15T00:26:38","date_gmt":"2013-01-14T23:26:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.xavierthollard.com\/wordpress\/?page_id=82"},"modified":"2025-08-17T08:42:16","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T07:42:16","slug":"bio","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.xavierthollard.com\/?page_id=82","title":{"rendered":"Bio"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"20130115-002634.jpg\"<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

N\u00e9 en 1982, Xavier Thollard d\u00e9couvre la musique \u00e0 l’\u00e2ge de 9 ans au Conservatoire de Rennes, o\u00f9 il suit des \u00e9tudes de percussions. Il entame en parall\u00e8le des cours de piano classique, et c’est \u00e0 14 ans qu’il d\u00e9cide d’\u00e9tudier le jazz. Apr\u00e8s avoir suivi des cours de piano-jazz \u00e0 la M.J.C. Br\u00e9quigny de Rennes, il apprend surtout au contact d’autres musiciens, en int\u00e9grant plusieurs formations. Il participe \u00e9galement \u00e0 des stages de jazz, notamment \u00e0 Marciac en 2001.<\/p>\n

Depuis 2002, l’ann\u00e9e de son arriv\u00e9e \u00e0 Paris, Xavier Thollard collabore \u00e0 de nombreux projets musicaux et int\u00e8gre notamment le Big Band des Universit\u00e9s de Paris (r\u00e9cemment rebaptis\u00e9 Crazy Big Band), formation cr\u00e9\u00e9e en 2004 par Thierry Lalo. Il monte \u00e9galement un duo avec l’harmoniciste Yvonnick Pren\u00e9.<\/p>\n

Son premier disque en trio \u00ab\u00a0Prime Times\u00a0\u00bb, sorti en 2008, est s\u00e9lectionn\u00e9 par la FNAC dans son rep\u00e9rage \u00ab\u00a0jeune talent\u00a0\u00bb. \u00ab\u00a0H\u00f4i An\u00a0\u00bb, sorti en 2009, re\u00e7oit \u00e9galement un vif succ\u00e8s (A Nous PARIS, \u00ab\u00a0coup de coeur\u00a0\u00bb FNAC).<\/p>\n

Depuis 2009, il participe \u00e0 un projet de conf\u00e9rence\/concert autour de la musique de Michel Petrucciani, avec le contrebassiste Simon D\u00e9sert et le batteur Simon Bernier.<\/p>\n

Xavier Thollard sort en mars 2011 son premier enregistrement en piano solo, dont le r\u00e9pertoire est essentiellement consacr\u00e9 aux standards de jazz.<\/p>\n

En 2012, il forme un duo avec le saxophoniste Jonathan Orland. En 2013, il fonde le groupe Elec-Trio avec les musiciens Antoine Karacostas et Axel R, dont le premier disque \u00ab Giant Steps \u00bb, allie jazz et musiques \u00e9lectroniques.<\/p>\n

Xavier Thollard forme en 2014 un nouveau Trio avec M\u00e1ty\u00e1s Szandai \u00e0 la contrebasse et Simon Bernier \u00e0 la batterie autour d\u2019un nouveau r\u00e9pertoire de compositions et standards revisit\u00e9s, formation qui enregistre un premier disque \u00ab Nardis \u00bb sorti en 2017, et un deuxi\u00e8me \u00ab (re) compositions \u00bb sorti en 2020.<\/p>\n

En 2022, Xavier Thollard enregistre un nouveau disque en piano solo \u00ab ostinatos \u00bb dans lequel chaque plage est d\u00e9di\u00e9e \u00e0 l\u2019un des grands pianistes qui l\u2019ont influenc\u00e9 (Oscar Peterson, Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett\u2026). Les pi\u00e8ces de piano solo font la part belle aux m\u00e9triques asym\u00e9triques et impaires, un terrain de jeu privil\u00e9gi\u00e9 du pianiste.<\/p>\n

Prix, r\u00e9compenses :
\noctobre 2009 : 3\u00e8me prix au concours de piano-jazz de Fribourg (Allemagne)
\njuillet 2007 : 1er prix du tremplin professionnel Jazz \u00e0 Vannes<\/p>\n

———————————————————————————————————————<\/p>\n

Xavier Thollard was born in 1982, and started to learn music at the age of 9 in the Rennes Conservatory of Music in France. After percussions and classical piano studies, he decided to learn jazz, and had piano-jazz lessons in a district school. He especially learned in contact with other musicians, playing in many formations, and having jazz training courses (like Marciac\u2019s in 2001).<\/p>\n

Since he moved to Paris in 2002, Xavier Thollard has led several musical projects and collaborated with many musicians, in particular by playing with the Big Band des Universit\u00e9s de Paris, which was created in 2004 by Thierry Lalo, and playing in duet with french harmonica player Yvonnick Pren\u00e9.<\/p>\n

His first CD trio as a leader \u00ab\u00a0Prime Times\u00a0\u00bb, released in 2008, was selected as \u201cyoung talent\u201d by the french music store FNAC. \u00ab\u00a0H\u00f4i An\u00a0\u00bb, released in 2009, also received a huge success (A Nous PARIS, \u00ab\u00a0coup de coeur\u00a0\u00bb FNAC).<\/p>\n

Since 2009, he has been involved in a conference\/concert project concerning Michel Petrucciani music, with Simon D\u00e9sert on bass and the Simon Bernier on drums.<\/p>\n

In 2011, Xavier Thollard released his first solo piano recording, whose repertoire is primarily dedicated to jazz standards.<\/p>\n

In 2012, he formed a duet with saxophonist Jonathan Orland. In 2013, he founded the \u00ab\u00a0Elec-Trio\u00a0\u00bb project with Antoine Karacostas and Axel R, whose first album \u00ab\u00a0Giant Steps\u00a0\u00bb combines jazz and electronic music.<\/p>\n

Xavier Thollard formed a new trio in 2014 with M\u00e1ty\u00e1s Szandai on double bass and Simon Bernier on drums with a new repertoire of compositions and revisited standards, this trio recorded \u00ab\u00a0Nardis\u00a0\u00bb album released in 2017, and \u00ab (re)compositions \u00bb in 2020.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2022, he released a new solo piano album called \u00ab\u00a0Ostinatos\u00a0\u00bb, in which each track is dedicated to a great pianist who influenced him (Oscar Peterson, Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett\u2026).
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

The solo piano pieces give pride of place to asymmetrical and odd metrics, the pianist’s preferred playground.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Prizes, awards :
\noctober 2009 : 3rd prize at the Freiburg Jazz Piano Competition (Germany)
\njuly 2007 : 1st prize at the professional competition Jazz \u00e0 Vannes (France)<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

N\u00e9 en 1982, Xavier Thollard d\u00e9couvre la musique \u00e0 l’\u00e2ge de 9 ans au Conservatoire de Rennes, o\u00f9 il suit des \u00e9tudes de percussions. Il entame en parall\u00e8le des cours de piano classique, et c’est \u00e0 14 ans qu’il d\u00e9cide d’\u00e9tudier le jazz. Apr\u00e8s avoir suivi des cours de piano-jazz \u00e0 la M.J.C. Br\u00e9quigny de …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-82","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xavierthollard.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/82","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xavierthollard.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xavierthollard.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xavierthollard.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xavierthollard.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=82"}],"version-history":[{"count":44,"href":"https:\/\/www.xavierthollard.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/82\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":712,"href":"https:\/\/www.xavierthollard.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/82\/revisions\/712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xavierthollard.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=82"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}