Mike Nock
New Zealand-born pianist and composer Mike Nock is one of the acknowledged masters of jazz in our region, known equally for his improvising at the keyboard and for compositions that reach well beyond the jazz stage.
Mike Nock returned to Australia in 1985 after twenty-five years in the United States, where he had built an international reputation through touring and recording.
Although primarily known as a jazz composer, his music has been commissioned and performed by ensembles including the Cleveland Chamber Orchestra, the New Zealand Piano Quartet and New Zealand String Quartet, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Synergy, Ensemble 24 and Melbourne Windpower, among many others. A substantial set of fully notated piano pieces is heard on In the Time of Sakura (MD 3314).
From 1996 to 2001 he was music director of Naxos Jazz, and in 1999 he received a two-year Australian Arts Council Fellowship. He was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM) in 2003 for services to jazz; in 1983 he hosted his own television series Nock on Jazz, and in 1993 he was the subject of a TVNZ documentary.
Artist's website: www.mikenock.com
Mike Nock is featured on the following titles
In the Time of Sakura: The Piano Music of Mike Nock
Michael Kieran Harvey plays twenty-seven fully notated piano pieces by Mike Nock. Eclectic in range, they draw on long-standing repertoire and new work written for this collection, a sonic diary shaped by jazz, classical and personal influence.