About LEILA
AWARDS
Django Reinhardt Prize French Jazz Academy
Best Musician of the year & Best CONDUCTOR in the Best of JAZZ by Jazzmag & JazzNews 2025
Best Conductor in the Best of JAZZ by Jazzmag & JazzNews 2023
Top Jazz Mezzo TV
Choc Jazzmag
Indispensable JazzNews
AFRICAN RHAPSODY
Leïla Olivesi's African Rhapsody: a luminous, prize-winning journey through jazz, poetry and plural identities, with an all-star French octet.
Pianist, composer and conductor Leïla Olivesi stands as one of the most compelling voices in contemporary French jazz. Double winner of the Best of Jazz 2025 awards -- Best Musician and Best Conductor of the Year by JazzMagazine and JazzNews -- and laureate of the prestigious Django Reinhardt Prize from the Académie du Jazz, she arrives with her seventh album African Rhapsody, a work of rare ambition and singular beauty.
Rooted in the plural identity of its creator -- Mauritanian and Corsican by heritage, Parisian by practice, cosmopolitan by instinct -- African Rhapsody is a musical journey that moves from the ancient library of Chinguetti to the streets of New York, from the maquis of the Mediterranean to the depths of the African continent. It is not nostalgia, nor exoticism. It is something altogether more honest: a composer reckoning with her own geography, and transforming it into sound.
Her hand-picked Octet brings together the finest musicians of their generation: Quentin Ghomari on trumpet, the incandescent Baptiste Herbin on alto saxophone and Manu Codjia on guitar. Together they navigate Olivesi's richly layered writing with the fluency of long-time collaborators, balancing collective momentum with luminous solo voices. The music breathes, surges, and dances -- latin grooves coiling around jazz harmonies, orchestral colour opening into joyful, full-throated swing.
The extraordinary Camille Bertault and the choir Poetic Birds lend their voices to a suite drawing on some of the greatest poetry from the African literary tradition: Léopold Sédar Senghor, David Diop, and Djamila Olivesi. Words and music intertwine here with natural grace, neither illustrating nor competing, but genuinely co-existing.
Awarded the CHOC by JazzMagazine and INDISPENSABLE by JazzNews, and nominated for Best Album of the Year by the Académie du Jazz, African Rhapsody is a record that earns every one of its accolades. This is jazz at its most generous, most rigorous, and most alive.
Track Listing
African Rhapsody
Corsica
Wayne Left Town
Blue Chinguetti
Little African Flower
Joy
Aurore
Afro Queen Poetic Birds Suite
Les Nuits
Un jour, le Silence
New york
QUOTES
American Grammy awarded Pianist Geoffrey Keezer said about her music : « This is fully contemporary acoustic jazz on a high level, with brilliant musicians that interpret and breathe her musical visions to life. »
Le Monde : "The swinging impulse as the sophistication towards musical clarity seduce and even enchant."
Le Monde, Francis Marmande : She ranks alongside the great female bandleaders Mary Lou Williams, Carla Bley, Maria Schneider…
France Musique : "Leïla asserts herself as an authentic artist of today" - "Original, harmonious music"
Académie du jazz : "Pianist Leïla Olivesi's latest album delights us"
BIO
Leïla Olivesi is a French female pianist and composer based in Paris.
Winner of the Best of Jazz 2025 : "Best musician of the year" and "Best conductor of the year", by JazzMagazine and JazzNews.
Winner of the Django Reinhardt Prize by the Académie du Jazz 2022: Best French Musician of the year.
She is PhD in musicology at the Sorbonne University and MA graduate in philosophy at the Sorbonne.
In 2013, she received the Ellington Composers first prize, the international big band composing competition. She was commissioned for "Rhapsody in Black" by the mixed choir Choeur Philharmonique intertnational, Unesco Artist for Peace (2025), le "Tour du monde en 80 lunes" for the Choir VOCO (département des Hauts de Seine) for 500 teens singers (2025), and the "Suite Andamane" for symphonic orchestra, jazz big band and mixed choir (2016).
Her seventh album was published in 2025 AFRICAN RHAPSODY. It has been multi-awarded : CHOC Jazzmag and INDISPENSABLE JazzNews. African Rhapsody is also nominated for the Best Album of the year by the French Academy du jazz.
She gives lectures about Duke Ellington and Mary Lou Williams. She is curently vice-president of the Maison du Duke in Paris.
She has performed with many great artists : Dave Binney, Glenn Ferris, Magic Malik, Rick Margitza, John Betsch, Jean-Charles Richard, Alex Terrier, Elisabeth Kontomanou, Manu Codjia, Emile Parisien, Jeanne Added, Stéphane Belmondo, Anne Paceo, Julie Saury, Metiswing, African Salsa Orchestra, Leon Parker, Laurent Mignard, Baptiste Herbin...
She performed in many festivals as Jazz à Vienne, Parfum de Jazz, St Omer Jaaz Festival, Jazz à St Germain des prés, Nevers Djazz, St Sat, Crest Jazz Festival, Jazz sous les Pommiers à Coutances, Jazz sur le Vif (studio 104 de la Maison de la Radio), Jazz en Sol mineur, le 106 Rouen, St Gille Croix de Vie, Bourg-en-Bresse, Moulin d’Andé, Jazz in Aiacciu, Jazz in Marciac, Radio France Montpellier Jazz Festival, Albertville Jazz Festival, Orleans Jazz Festival, Ankara Jazz Festival, Les Elles du jazz, Ciman jazz à Nouakchott, Jazz à St Germain des prés, Paris Jazz Club, le Midem, St Malo, Agadir Anmogar, Pontaut-Combault, Bagneux, Jazz et vin en double, St Fons Jazz Festival…
日本語
数々の賞を受賞しているピアニストであり作曲家でもあるレイラ・オリヴェシは、フランス・ジャズ・アカデミーのジャンゴ・ラインハルト賞を受賞したフランスの新星です。
彼女はデューク・エリントンのスペシャリストでもあり、エリントン作曲家賞を受賞しています。 シャトレ座で開催されるJazzMag70周年記念イベントの主演ピアニストでもあります。彼女はまた、前回のフェスティバル・ピアノマニアでは、ジョバンニ・ミラバッシやローラン・ド・ウィルドといった偉大なピアニストと競演し、ソロ演奏を披露しました。 非常に優れた才能を持ち、メディアや世間の人々からから絶賛される彼女は、アストラル・クインテットを率いて世界ツアーを行っています。
アメリカのグラミー賞を受賞したピアニストのジェフリー・キーザーは、彼女の音楽について次のように述べています。 「これは、レベルの高い完全な現代アコースティック・ジャズであり、素晴らしいミュージシャンたちが彼女の音楽的ビジョンを解釈し、息吹を吹き込みます。»
プレス引用・受賞歴
Le monde：「音楽的透明性を追求する精巧さがスイングする衝動となって聴衆を誘惑し、魅了します」
France Musique：「レイラ、自らを現代の本物のアーティストと断言」、「オリジナルで調和のとれた音楽」
Académie du jazz：「ピアニスト、レイラ・オリヴェシの最新アルバムが私たちを魅了」
ジャンゴ・ラインハルト賞 フランス・ジャズ・アカデミー
最優秀バンドリーダー の中に 2023 年のベスト Jazzmag & JazzNews
Top Jazz Mezzo TV
Choc JazzMag（フランス）
Indispensable JazzNews （フランス）
photo Faïmano Benoît