Elbphilharmonie Talk with Brad Mehldau

Competition for the Grammy in the Best Alternative Jazz Album category is especially fierce in 2026, but Brad Mehldau’s latest album, »Ride Into The Sun«, has secured a place among the top five nominees. The album is a beautiful Americana-inspired tribute to the singer-songwriter Elliot Smith (1969-2003), who died young and with whom Mehldau performed several times in Los Angeles. Shortly before his Grammy nomination was announced, and ahead of curating a »Reflektor« festival in his name at the Elbphilharmonie in March, Brad Mehldau took time out on a Sunday afternoon from his home in Amsterdam for an »Elbphilharmonie Talk« via Zoom. The conversation centres around his festival programme, his career path and his latest book project.

The jazz pianist Brad Mehldau in all his artistic facets: as a soloist, in a duo, with big band and an orchestra – he shows himself to be a gifted interpreter, composer and improviser.

Subscribe to the »Elbphilharmonie Talk« podcast on

The album »Ride Into The Sun« naturally came up, even though performing a live version of the studio album proved unfeasible at the »Reflektor« festival owing to time constraints. Instead, Mehldau speaks in detail and with great insight about the programme he has devised for his guest residency at the Elbphilharmonie, which spans several days. He will be performing solo, in a duo with double bass giant Christian McBride, with a big band and an orchestra. And each of the four evenings in the Grand Hall will have a special twist. From the cinemascope-wide spectrum of his musical capabilities, Brad Mehldau the pianist will be focusing this time in Hamburg on Brad Mehldau the composer. He has the Elbphilharmonie very much in mind here. Not only has he returned to the venue many times to perform over the years in different constellations, but shortly before his remarkable solo debut just days after the opening in January 2017, he also attended a Chicago Symphony Orchestra concert there. Since then, the question of how his own orchestrated music might sound in this Grand Hall has taken root in his mind.

Anyone who has the chance to speak with the composer and pianist Brad Mehldau would do well to take the opportunity to ask the author Brad Mehldau about his brilliant coming-of-age-meets-jazz-history opus »Formation: Building A Personal Canon. Part One«. This, too, became part of the Elbphilharmonie Talk – in appropriately generous detail.