PIANIST AND COMPOSER MAX PETERSEN
by Rene Mosele
Half Australian, half German, shaped by New York, Basel, Zurich and Lugano — Max Petersen's sixth album is his most expansive yet: jazz and classical and electronics, held together by a love of nature and a deep curiosity about the world.
A jazz pianist drawn increasingly towards classical music, interdisciplinary collaboration, and the meditative space found in running through the forest — Max Petersen's LiberA is music made possible by stillness.
Based in Winterthur, Switzerland — a small but culturally lively town — Petersen spent 2020 differently to most musicians. Where the pandemic forced others to stop, it gave him space to begin. LiberA is his first studio album in the true sense, and his first with a full ensemble.
It bridges jazz, classical, and electronics, featuring music videos with dancers and animation. A fully interdisciplinary work born from interdisciplinary circumstances.
"My music is usually influenced by the things that concern my life at any given moment in time. I spend a lot of time thinking — and a lot of time reading. That's where the music comes from."
Max PetersenTell us about your greatest inspirations or influences?
I'm a jazz pianist, but over the last three years classical music started becoming more important to me. I studied with classical concert pianists and invested time into classical improvisation and composition.
This year I have been exploring lots of Australian music and listening to artists from Melbourne and Sydney such as Liza Lim, Simon Barker, Barney McAll. I also studied closely with Bulgarian pianist, composer and improviser Galina Vracheva and pianist Ronald Brautigam.
Tell us a bit about your creative process?
It's usually project based. When I work on the music, I am usually preparing concerts, composing or studying something specific. I also like reading and I spend a lot of time thinking.
How has the pandemic affected your creativity and how do you see the world changing?
The new album, LiberA, is the first of this sort for me — it's really a studio album. And it wouldn't have been what it is without the pandemic. Since playing live was hardly possible, there was more space to invest time and energy in a studio project like this.
In LiberA there was more interdisciplinary collaboration going on — not only aesthetically between classical, jazz, and electronics, but also through the music videos, which feature dancers and animation.
Influences & Voices
A constantly expanding constellationNot sure if she is an icon — but Max is currently fascinated by Australian composer Liza Lim. Her music deals with urgent questions of our time: our relationship with nature, climate change, and how music reflects the Anthropocene era.
Living right next to the forest, Max goes running not for fitness but for the meditative state it induces — spending time with trees, paths, and the quiet that clears everything else away.
Caring for neighbours, friends, and family. Professionally, cultivating relationships with people he genuinely respects and trusts. Trust as creative infrastructure.
"I like reading and I spend a lot of time thinking." For Max, the music emerges from wherever the mind goes — and giving it the time and space to go there is itself a form of well-being.
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