Piano Talk Show

This Canadian performer has shown a remarkable, chameleonic skill for reinvention.

- LOUIS PATTISON, THE GUARDIAN (30/04/2011)

Many and varied are the qualities that define the virtuoso Chilly Gonzales. Throughout his extensive career, Gonzalez has variously set himself up as a wild rapper of the Viennese underground, a melancholic piano genius, a Grammy-nominated producer and a workaholic. In addition, he holds the Guinness Book of Records title for the longest piano solo concert.

Gonzales plays piano and talks. Most of the time he raps, complains frequently and teaches the audience the art of improvisation in between deft renditions. An unclassifiable artist, showman and irreverent comedian. His Piano Talk Show performances follow closely the compositions on his Solo Piano album which, when released in 2004, became his best-selling work and was acclaimed by fans and critics alike. Its 16 tracks are reminiscent of Erik Satie and the melodious tones of Maurice Ravel, with clear influences of Canadian folk and American jazz.

Since bursting onto the international scene at the end of the 1990s by moving from his native Canada to Berlin, Chilly Gonzales has not stopped surprising the world. "He's been an indie kid, a Jewish rapper, a soft rocker, a record-breaking solo pianist, a soundtrack composer, a producer (of Feist, Jane Birkin and Jamie Lidell), and a member of a band of puppets. Yet somehow that's just not enough for Jason Beck aka Chilly Gonzales," declared Wyndham Wallace in a BBC review last year. Gonzales has also done remixes for Daft Punk and Bjork. In Paris, he worked with Feist on Let it Die and The Reminder. In 2009, he entered the Guinness Book of Records for a concert of solo piano lasting 27 hours. In 2010, came the Boyze Noize-produced album, Ivory Tower. And last year he excelled again with The Unspeakable Chilly Gonzales, the first-ever rap album and concert tour with an orchestra.

As the artist himself said in an interview in The Times in 2010: "The true essence of the Gonzales brand is egotism, skill and musical genius."

www.chillygonzales.com