Elliot Galvin

British pianist and multi-instrumentalist Elliot Galvin crafts sonically textured, exploratory jazz that frequently crosses genre boundaries. As a core member of the band Dinosaur, he has issued his own recordings, among them Punch in 2016, The Influencing Machine in 2018, and Modern Times in 2019. In 2020 he appeared in a solo-piano setting on Live in Paris at Fondation Louis Vuitton and, later that year, merged piano with electronics for the atmospheric single “From Beneath.”

Galvin was born in 1991 and first sat at the piano near the age of six, initially playing casually at a neighbor’s house before beginning formal lessons. During his teenage years he pursued jazz and improvisation while continuing his classical training. He later enrolled in jazz studies at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London, completing the program in 2013. The following year he received the European Young Jazz Artist of the Year Award. In addition to directing his own trio, Galvin belongs to the Mercury Prize-nominated jazz-and-indie group Dinosaur and performs with trumpeter Emma-Jean Thackray’s ensemble Walrus12. His debut leader date, Punch, arrived in 2016; the next year he issued Weather, a duet project with percussionist Mark Sanders.

The 2018 album The Influencing Machine drew its concept from the experiences of eighteenth-century merchant Jay Tilly Matthews, who was convinced that a machine was controlling his thoughts. In 2019 Galvin recorded the duo album Ex Nihilo with saxophonist Binker Golding and also released Modern Times, a trio session featuring bassist Tom McCredie and drummer Corrie Dick. Live in Paris at Fondation Louis Vuitton, a document of improvised solo piano, followed in 2020. In 2024 he returned with the atmospheric single “From Beneath,” which integrates piano and electronics alongside bass and vocals from Ruth Goller and percussion from Sebastian Rochford.