Sullivan Fortner

Sullivan Fortner, a pianist from New Orleans, has made his mark as a proficient and decorated jazz composer and musician who gravitates toward refined post-bop. He entered the world in that city during 1986 and first touched the piano near the age of four. Church ensembles claimed his attention by nine, followed at thirteen by admission to the celebrated New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA). Throughout his teenage period Fortner shone at the keyboard, capturing scholarships for both the Vail Jazz Institute and the Skidmore Jazz Studies summer programs. After finishing coursework at NOCCA together with his local high school, where he served as Valedictorian, he sharpened his technique with a bachelor’s degree from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and later completed a master’s at the Manhattan School of Music. Performances and recordings with an array of distinguished artists—among them vibraphonist Stefon Harris, trumpeter Theo Croker, saxophonist Donald Harrison, and trumpeter Roy Hargrove—have accumulated into an extensive résumé. In 2015 Fortner earned the Cole Porter Fellowship in Jazz from the American Pianists Association. The identical year brought his first album as bandleader, the Impulse! release Aria.