Andrew McCormack Trio

Andrew McCormack is a pianist and composer whose vibrant career spans international festival and concert hall appearances. After winning a BBC Jazz Award for his 2005 debut Telescope, he has released a string of acclaimed albums—including Live in London (2012) and First Light (2014)—and formed celebrated trios and collaborations. In 2022, he released Terra Firma with his new trio featuring Joe Downard and Rod Youngs, earning praise for its confident and self-aware sound.

McCormack also writes film scores and launched the groove-based project Graviton in 2017. Looking ahead, the trio’s forthcoming release Luminosity (expected 2026) signals the next chapter in his ongoing artistic evolution.

Pianist and composer Andrew McCormack has built a diverse international career with many appearances at major festivals and concert halls all over the globe. As a leader, his debut album Telescope in 2005 was universally well received and earned him a BBC jazz award for rising star the following year with the pianist returning later to the trio format with a series of other critically acclaimed albums that include Live In London in 2012 and First Light in 2014.

The latter features a New York rhythm section as a document to his having lived in the city for three years. In October 2022, Andrew released Terra Firma on Ubuntu Music featuring his new trio of Joe Downard on bass and Rod Youngs on drums. This latest album has enjoyed considerable critical acclaim with Jazzwise describing “a new confidence and self-awareness about McCormack on this one that makes it one of his best album recordings so far.”

The trio has successfully completed extensive touring in 2022/3 to the UK, France and Italy including sold out shows at Ronnie Scott’s in London and Duc Des Lombards in Paris. Looking ahead, his latest trio release, Luminosity, due in 2026, marks the next chapter in the trio’s ongoing artistic evolution. The pianist teamed up with composer/saxophonist Jason Yarde to form the McCormack & Yarde Duo with their first album release together, MY DUO in 2009. The duo has since gone on to firmly establish itself with international tours and further album releases that have garnered widespread critical recognition for their developments in the genre.

Places And Other Spaces was released in 2011 and they followed up in 2013 to feature the Elysian String Quartet on the eclectic Juntos. McCormack has also toured extensively as a solo pianist, performing at venues internationally, most notably a sold-out concert in Hall One at Kings Place, London, where he opened for Michael Wollny in 2017. In 2020, he released SOLO to widespread critical acclaim, receiving across-the-board 4-star reviews and further underlining the breadth of his already diverse portfolio. Using a mixture of originals, standard and not so standard repertoire, the pianist demonstrates his compelling ideas, composing and thrilling performances in the stripped down intimate setting of solo piano.

McCormack also has a keen interest in composition. Having studied with British composer, Mark-Anthony Turnage, he has gone on to receive commissions from various ensembles including the London Symphony Orchestra. Andrew’s eight minute overture, Incentive was premiered by the orchestra at the Barbican in London and included on their Panufnik Legacies CD in 2013. He worked as an orchestrator and additional music composer for a number of Clint Eastwood movies including, Flags of Our Fathers, Grace is Gone & Changeling.

More recently, he has been writing scores for many short films and later in 2026 he will compose the score for his first feature film as the main composer, Nightmares for Cupsogue Pictures. In 2017, Andrew launched Graviton, a more odd groove-based project incorporating vocals and a broader, prog-jazz-leaning sound world, culminating in the 2019 album Graviton: The Calling, a fully conceived work that follows the classic hero’s journey. The pianist has also been an invaluable sideman to many major international artists but is perhaps best known for his continued collaborations with the Kyle Eastwood Band for well over a decade. Whatever the genre, throughout his body of work, Andrew McCormack has managed to consistently demonstrate a compelling setting for his musical ideas, a platform for virtuosic improvisation and a constant revivifying and adaptive embodiment of the jazz tradition.