Grammy-winning multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi has earned recognition as a “musical alchemist” and “musical polyglot” from critics and music lovers alike.

Leaving his home country of Italy, Turrisi moved to The Hague to study jazz piano and early music at the prestigious Royal Conservatory, where he completed both his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. In 2004, he relocated to Ireland, where he now resides and thrives as a freelance musician.

Turrisi has a remarkable versatility, easily shifting between playing with jazz legends like Dave Liebman and Bill Frisell, to collaborating with Irish traditional sean-nós singer Roisin El Safty or renowned tarantella artist Lucilla Galeazzi. His eclectic career includes touring with Bobby McFerrin, performing baroque operas with L'Arpeggiata, working with The Silk Road Ensemble, interpreting Steve Reich’s compositions with Bang on a Can All Stars, and accompanying flamenco virtuoso Pepe El Habichuela, alongside Greek singer Savina Yannatou. As a leader, he has released five albums that have garnered widespread critical acclaim, plus two as a co-leader, including Tarab, a groundbreaking ensemble fusing Irish and Mediterranean traditional music, and Zahr, which explores the connections between southern Italian and Arabic musical traditions.

His most recent solo piano album, Northern Migrations, has been praised as “delicate, wistful, and wholly engrossing” by the Irish Times. Since 2018, Turrisi has been collaborating with American Grammy-winning singer and multi-instrumentalist Rhiannon Giddens on a duo project that seamlessly blends Mediterranean music with sounds from the African diaspora in the Americas.

In 2019, they released there is no Other, a critically acclaimed album, with the single “I’m on my way” receiving a 2020 Grammy nomination. Their second album together, They’re Calling Me Home, released in 2021, was nominated for two Grammy Awards and won Best Folk Album at the 2022 Grammy Awards.

Turrisi's expansive list of collaborators includes: Bobby McFerrin, Dave Liebman, Gianluigi Trovesi, Bill Frisell, Rhiannon Giddens, The Silk Road Ensemble, Nils Landgren, Wolfgang Muthspiel, Gavin Bryars, Gabriele Mirabassi, Rolando Villazón, Lisa Hannigan, Savina Yannatou, Maria Pia de Vito, Theodosii Spassov, The King’s Singers, Veronique Gens, Philippe Jaroussky, Pepe El Habichuela, Lucilla Galeazzi, and many more.