Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Sophia Domancich was born January 25, 1957 in Paris, France and began learning piano at the age of six. She attended the Conservatoire de Paris from 1968 to 1975 where she won first prize for piano and chamber music. She began her career as an accompanist in vocal and dance lessons, with the Paris Opera and the Théâtre de Caen.

In 1979 she met Steve Lacy, Bernard Lubat and Jean-Louis Chautemps who introduced her to the world of jazz and improvisation. By 1982 she formed a duet with Laurent Cugny and joined the big band Lumiére. She later participated in Quoi D’Neuf Docteur? with Steve Grossman, Glenn Ferris and Jack Walrath.

The following year during a brief collaboration with the group Anaïd, she met several English musicians from the Canterbury scene, drummer Pip Pyle, saxophonist Elton Dean and bassist Hugh Hopper, forming the group L’Equip Out in late 1984. The group included for a time a fifth member, Didier Malherbe on the flute and the tenor saxophone. In 1990, L’Equip Out recorded a second album, Up!, with bassist Paul Rogers.

With the latter and drummers Bruno Tocanne and Tony Levin, she formed the Sophia Domancich Trio with which she toured for eight years and  recorded five studio albums. Also with Rogers, she created a 1995 quartet with the original composition, this time with two trumpeters, Patrick Fabert and Jean-François Canape.

Through the 1990s and into the new century, Domancich continued collaborating and recording with John Greaves and Vincent Courtois’ Trouble with Happiness, and with Simon Goubert. She was a pianist under Didier Levallet in the Orchester National de Jazz. In 2000 she formed the Quintet Pentacle, in 2006 the Trio DAG (Domancich, Avenel, Goubert) creating three albums as a trio and an album “free 4 DAG” with saxophonist Dave Liebman. Sophia ventured into electronic music, formed three more groups to continue to express herself through her music.

She became the first woman to receive the Prix Django Reinhardt from the Jazz Academy as French Musician of the Year.  By 2007 found herself included in the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Culture collaborative book, 100 Jazz Titles, that included her 2002 Pentacle Quintet release.

She has recorded 10 albums as a leader, 7 as a co-leader and 20 as a member of other groups. Pianist and jazz composer Sophia Domancich continues to compose, explore, perform and reinvent herslf.

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