Nicolas Hafner
Profile
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Nicolas Hafner was born in Geneva in 1967 and obtained his musical education at the Geneva Conservatory, studying the violin, organ with François Delor, piano, orchestration and composition with Jean Balissat. He was awarded the Rochette and Neuman improvisation prizes. He also studied musicology at the University of Geneva.
In addition, he was the organist at the Basilica Notre-Dame of Geneva from 1985-2005.
He is the founder of SWISSTET, a jazz-band which has toured the USA and Canada several times and recorded three CDs: “My Swiss Standards”, “My Standards” and “Les Standards de Fugain“.
The “Swiss Standards” album, which contains jazz arrangements of well-known Swiss tunes (by Dalcroze, Bovet, etc.) , has been particularly well-received.
Nicolas Hafner became interested in jazz and contemporary music early on. He has participated, as a conductor, pianist or orchestrator, in many shows, concerts, and TV broadcasts on RTS (Coup de cœur by Alain Morison, Pierre Naftule, MT Porchet,
Première Scène, Chorus).
He has accompanied, inter alia, for Michel Fugain, Daran, Philippe Lavil, Alain Chamfort, Indochine. Jimmy O’Neil, Nick Hart, Axel Bauer, Ahmed Mouici, Pablo Villafranca, Lorie, Jenny MacKay, and Guy Marchand.
For several years now, he has been Musical Director and Arranger for the Geneva and Lausanne Revues. He also does orchestrations for the OSG, the OCG, and the OSR.
He was Artistic Director for the Ateliers du Funambule in Nyon (which trained authors-composers-performers) from 2000 to 2012. It is on that capacity that he won the Prix de l‘Eveil 2011 from the Vaud Cultural Foundation.
He is interested in teaching and in helping people understand music, and, particularly, piano accompaniment. He has published a “Method for Learning to Accompany on the Piano” (4th Edition, 2021, 163 pages),
He is currently a Senior Lecturer at Geneva’s Haute École de Musique, teaching music classes in schools and also the EMA, in the new contemporary music centre,
He has composed film music, vocal works -mostly on words by Daniel Hameline - , piano pieces, a large number of songs, and more than 85 music scenes.
He is currently conducting the Suisse Romande Big Band.
As an improviser, he regularly runs cine-concerts: accompanying silent films on the piano or Collège Claparède‘s Wurlitzer organ (1937).
AOA festivals
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