In this youtube video, the Sylvie Courvoisier & Mary Halvorson duo starts at 1:00

Sylvie Courvoisier (piano) and Mary Halvorson (guitar) perform music from Bone Bells (Pyroclastic Records, 2025), their third duo album. Featuring eight new compositions split evenly between the two artists, the music showcases their telepathic interplay, ferocious intensity, and a deeply evolved duo language.
Bone Bells is a critically acclaimed 2025 release, hailed as an “essential” and “kaleidoscopic” contemporary jazz duo record. Blending chamber music and post-jazz, the album features intricate, intuitive dialogues that merge virtuosic improvisation with structured, dreamlike compositions. Critics praise it as a masterful, joyful, and highly sophisticated collaboration.

Album Review
Bone Bells — #1 Jazz Album of 2025 (Jazzwise Critics’ Poll)
Formed in 2017 and debuting with Crop Circles, the idiosyncratic duo of Brooklyn-based Swiss pianist Sylvie Courvoisier and guitarist Mary Halvorson reconvened in 2021 for the highly impressive Searching for the Disappeared Hour. After another four-year gap, their new release Bone Bells—issued on Pyroclastic—has been well worth the wait.

On close listening, the duo’s tight-knit, simpatico union has evolved even further across a striking set of shared compositions. A purposeful, gripping dialogue is heightened by the flexibility and inventive responsiveness of their dual roles. Halvorson’s opener “Bone Bells” could serve as the soundtrack to an offbeat 1960s spy B-movie, her soloing evoking koto and dulcimer textures as much as any school of jazz guitar. Courvoisier responds by seamlessly merging avant-blues riffage with tense chromatic harmonies and waves of harp-like glissandi.

Elsewhere, “Esmeralda,” with its dramatic percussive motifs and creative use of space, leans toward abstract chamber music without alienating listeners beyond the avant-improv sphere. On “Beclouded,” Halvorson solos as if Django Reinhardt had emerged from modern-day downtown New York.
Bone Bells is not only the duo’s strongest release to date but one of the most inspired and kaleidoscopic contemporary jazz pairings in recent times.
— Selwyn Harris

Selected Press Quotes
“One of the most inspired and kaleidoscopic contemporary jazz pairings in recent times.”
— Selwyn Harris, Jazzwise

“Courvoisier and Halvorson take their duo language to new heights of fluency and sophistication.”
— Stewart Smith, The Wire

“A thrilling, fascinating album that projects the power, finesse, and emotional reach of an established working band.”
— Mike Hobart, Financial Times

“Swiss pianist Sylvie Courvoisier and American guitarist Mary Halvorson show how virtuosity and joy of playing can be beautifully combined… a shimmering quick fix.”
— Ulrich Stock, Die Zeit

“Courvoisier and Halvorson mine the jazz canon for inspiration while finding ways to playfully disrupt each other’s style.”
— Giovanni Russonello, The New York Times

“At the crossroads of contemporary chamber music and post-jazz, the pianist and guitarist deepen a dialogue that, with Bone Bells, stands out as one of the most essential of our time… A truly outstanding record.”
— Stéphane Ollivier, Jazz Magazine, CHOC, May 2025


About Sylvie Courvoisier
Pianist and composer Sylvie Courvoisier is a Swiss American artist based in New York City, celebrated for bridging the richly detailed world of European chamber music with the adventurous energy of downtown jazz. Described by The New York Times as “a pianist of equal parts audacity and poise,” she is equally compelling in composed and improvised settings, from concert halls to jazz clubs.
Her collaborations include John Zorn, Wadada Leo Smith, Christian Fennesz,  Evan Parker, Ikue Mori, Mark Feldman, Nate Wooley, and Ned Rothenberg.
Her honors include the Swiss Grand Prix for Music, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Music Award (2025), and the Deutsche Jazzpreis (International Piano, 2022). JazzTimes writes: “Courvoisier keeps you on the edge of your seat because it feels like the piano cannot contain her.”

About Mary Halvorson
Guitarist and composer Mary Halvorson, a MacArthur Fellow, has been hailed as “the most forward-thinking guitarist working right now” (NPR) and “one of today’s most formidable bandleaders” (Village Voice). Her work spans jazz, chamber music, and experimental forms, including acclaimed recent releases on Nonesuch Records (Amaryllis and Belladonna), described by The Guardian as “new landmarks” in her discography.
Halvorson has performed with Anthony Braxton, Tim Berne, Jason Moran, Marc Ribot, Tomeka Reid, John Zorn, and many others, and leads or co-leads multiple groundbreaking ensembles, including Thumbscrew. Her fearless improvisation and genre-defying creativity have established her as one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary music today.