Sullivan Fortner

Biography

For more than a decade, Sullivan Fortner has been stretching his deep-rooted talents as a pianist, composer, band leader and uncompromising individualist. The GRAMMY Award-winning artist and recipient of the 2026 Larry J. Bell Jazz Artist Award has garnered international praise as both a commanding leader and a fierce collaborator. Fortner earned the 2026 Grammy for Best Jazz Instrumental Album with his trio album Southern Nights with Peter Washington and Marcus Gilmore, the 2025 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Performance on Samara Joy’s “Twinkle Twinkle Little Me” and the 2019 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album alongside Cécile McLorin Salvant for her acclaimed album The Window, on which he serves as both key player and producer. Fortner also has earned GRAMMY Nominations for his 2023 release Solo Game and his arrangement of “Optimistic Voices/No Love Dying” from Salvant’s 2022 Grammy Nominated release Ghost Song. Fortner’s newest trio album Leave That In There will be released on August 28th, 2026, on Artwork Records (PIAS)

In addition to Fortner’s celebrated releases as a co-leader and collaborator, as a solo artist he has released Aria (2015); Moments Preserved (2018); Solo Game (2023), which earned

4-star reviews in DownBeat and France’s Telerama Magazine; and the Grammy winning Southern Nights (2025) which landed Fortner on the February cover of DownBeat.

Winner of the 2024 DownBeat Critics Poll for Rising Star Jazz Group: Sullivan Fortner Trio, the prolific artist soon earned the Western Jazz Presenters grant, empowering him to lead his trio — which features Tyrone Allen II and Kayvon Gordon — on a coastal tour of the U.S. through Albuquerque, New Mexico, Portland, Oregon and Oakland and Monterey, California. Over the past decade, Fortner has enjoyed creative associations with such diverse voices as Wynton Marsalis, Paul Simon, Diane Reeves, Etienne Charles and John Scofield; his frequent and longtime collaborators have included Cécile McLorin Salvant, Ambrose Akinmusire, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Stefon Harris, Kassa Overall, Theo Croker, Tivon Pennicott, Peter Bernstein, Nicholas Payton, Billy Hart, Gary Bartz, Chief Adjuah, Fred Hersch and the late Roy Hargrove. Recent collaborations include GRAMMY-nominated releases Dear Love (Empress Legacy) and Generations from leaders Jazzmeia Horn and The Baylor Project, respectively.

Playing solo or leading an orchestra, Sullivan Fortner engages harmony and rhythmic ideas through curiosity and clarity. Within phrases, Fortner finds universes, and listeners often hear how he’s moved by each note he explores. Coming up in New Orleans, Fortner began playing piano at age 7, following a storied lineage of improvisers, masters of time and every iteration of the blues. Fortner earned his Bachelor of Music from Oberlin Conservatory and Master of Music in Jazz Performance from Manhattan School of Music (MSM). A champion of mentorship, Fortner has offered masterclasses at MSM, New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA), Purdue University, Lafayette Summer Music Workshop, Belmont University and Oberlin Conservatory where he held a faculty position. In spring 2023, he again returned to his undergraduate alma mater as visiting professor of jazz piano.

A highly sought improviser, Fortner has performed across the country and throughout the world at such cultural institutions as Snug Harbor, New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts, Sweet Lorraine’s, The Jazz Playhouse in New Orleans, and Jazz at Lincoln Center, Jazz Standard and Smalls Jazz Club in New York City. He’s appeared at celebrated festivals, including the North Sea Jazz Festival, Newport Jazz Festival, Monterey Jazz Festival, Discover, Big Ears and the Gilmore Piano Festival, among many others. In 2019, Fortner brought his band to the historic Village Vanguard for a week-long engagement that he would reprise in 2020 as a virtual performance during lockdown; he continues to perform at the club annually. Fortner’s notable studio contributions include work on Etienne Charles’s Kaiso (Culture Shock, 2011), Donald Harrison’s Quantum Leap (FOMP, 2010), and Theo Croker’s The Fundamentals (Left Sided Music, 2007).

Pulling distinct elements from different eras, Fortner’s artistry preserves the tradition and evolves the sound, seeking connections among different musical styles that are at once deeply soulful and wildly inventive. Both Fortner’s works and his insights have been featured in culture drivers from The New York Times to The Root. Further accolades include the 2015 Cole Porter Fellowship awarded by the American Pianists Association, Leonore Annenberg Arts Fellowship, the 2016 Lincoln Center Award for Emerging Artists and, in 2020, the prestigious Shifting Foundation Grant for artistic career development.

Image Credit: John Abbott