Christoph  Irniger
Saxophone, Composition & Bandleader

The album with the Swiss Jazz Orchestra is here! I can hardly believe it myself. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that I would ever release my own big band album, so I am especially happy and incredibly grateful for the energy and support of everyone involved.

"The Music of Pilgrim" contains mostly arrangements of my quintet, which were recorded live at last year's Unerhört! Festival and is now available on NWOG Records for purchase, download or streaming on your favorite platforms here!

Today is the release of the first single „Back in the Game“ of my project with the Swiss Jazz Orchestra. Really happy to share this with you!

„The Music of Pilgrim“ will be released on October 21. The first single and CD pre-order are now available here!

Thanks for the dedication and spirit of everybody involved in this project! Swiss Jazz Orchestra NWOG Records SRF Kultur

Check the Live Section for more Infos and Ticket Links!

After an intensive rehearsal phase last month, we recorded our fifth album with Pilgrim, which will be released on Intakt Records in January 2023 celebrating the band's 10th anniversary. There will be a foretaste of some of the new compositions in June in Biel and at the Festival les Athénéennes in Genève.

At about the same time I finished the CD production of my arrangements of Pilgrim's music with the Swiss Jazz Orchestra. The release is in mid-October this year on nWog Records and concerts in Zurich, Bern, etc. are planned.

From autumn, tours will finally take place again. I am very pleased that most of the concerts that have been canceled in recent years, as well as additional concerts, with the Trio and the guests Loren Stillman and Ben van Gelder can take place starting in September.

More infos will be published in the next newsletter after the Summer break or under Live: www.christophirniger.com/en/live

I am so sorry we had to cancel the Pilgrim Tour in February because of a spine surgery. We will be back with a new CD to celebrate 10 years of Pilgrim in 2023!

Dear friends, 

After beeing almost back to normal for three months since summer we finally had to cancel the whole Swiss Jazz Night tour with the Trio & Ben van Gelder / Michael Attias (togeher with Luca Sisera Roofer) in december. The journey was so inspiring so far and I was looking forward to get the guys together again for these gigs. But at least we have been able to play a bit and I am thankful for the inspiring time with the cats on stage and the road.

So my musical journey ended this year with an unforgetable collaboration with the Swiss Jazz Orchestra. The arrangements I wrote during the last year of mostly Pilgrim originals were premiered in Bern, Chur and Zurich and were comissoned by the City of Zurich. The last concert was recorded by Radio SRF 2 Kultur and will be aired on January 4, 2022 at 8 pm (MEZ). Check this LINK to join the show or listen as Podcast after..

The plans for next year are pretty open, but there will be an intense working session with Pilgrim for sure in the first half of the year and of course we try to reschedule the trio gigs. Updates will be anounces asap!

Last but least and as every year I want to offer a christmas discount on some of my CDs. So if you purchase a Trio or Pilgrim CD from my homepage you'll get one of any of the others in the shop (till dec. 24, 2021) for free!

Thanks to everybody who came to see the shows, friends, family, promoters, supporters and music lovers. Stay save and a smooth ride into 2022!

Chistoph

Swiss Jazz Orchestra & Christoph Irniger / Live at Unerhört Festival @ Jazz im Seefeld / GZ Riesbach, Pic by Hannes Quaderer

I am really looking forward to play three concerts with the Swiss Jazz Orchestra. I wrote the music for this very special event last year and was supported thru the Arbeitsstipendium Covid-19 by  Stadt Zürich Kultur. The arrangements are mainly of already existing pieces from Pilgrim, as also recent works and a piece by NoReduce. An additional arrangement will be by David Grottschreiber. Check out the dates!

Dates:
15. November: Bierhübeli, Bern
23. November: JazzChur im Marsöl Saal, Chur
24. November: Unerhört Festival bei Jazz im Seefeld, Zürich

Dear Friends!

After almost a year I am thirlled to be on stage again on a regular basis, starting this week in Zurich with some of my favorite cats in town. Organized by Jazz im Seefeld, where Nils Wogram and I started to organize concerts more than 10 Years ago we play some music by Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, together with Mats Spillmann and the legendary Paul’s Boutique featuring Jean-Paul Brodbeck, Fabian Gisler and Claudio Strüby.

In the week after I will be with the David Regan Orchestra whose regular gig at Jazzclub Q4 in Rheinfelden was interrupted by Covid for too long, followed by a „swell cotillion“ at Villa Irniger with Michael Attias, Ralph Alessi, Raffaele Bossard and Jim Black on september 16.

From september 17 - 25 I am super excited to finally be able to present my current record with the trio featuring Raffaele Bossard and Ziv Ravitz and Guest Michael Attias in Switzerland and the US. The tour will be continued in November and December in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and UK featuring Ben Van Gelder, hoping there won’t be any funny bugs or other surprises - delta variant included - until then.

So much looking forward to be back on my horn again. But I feel also really blessed and thankful for the support during the last year. Thanks to the Covid-19 grant by Popkredit Stadt Zürich I was able to keep myself buzy over this time writing mostly for the Swiss Jazz Orchestra. My arrangements of the music of Pilgrim will be performed in mid. November in Bern, Chur and Zürich and will be a totally new and thrilling adventure. Thanks to Ohad Talmor and David Grottschreiber for the support!

Last but not least I will be teaching i Zurich and working with the Big Band of MKZ where we will have some nice adventures as well.

Would be great seeing some of you along the way. Stay save and keep in touch!

One Love, 
C.

Details: https://christophirniger.com/en/live