Alex Ventling | Wavemakers | December 11th, 2025

Trondheim based, Swiss-New Zealand pianist, composer, and filmmaker Alex Ventling unveils his new quartet album Wavemakers – a richly textured project where chamber-jazz lyricism meets Nordic atmospheres, cinematic grooves, and meditative forward motion. Built on the interplay of four distinctive voices, the music explores momentum, fragility, and transformation, inviting listeners into a sound world that feels both organic and expansive.

Wavemakers is set for release on December 11th, 2025.

The quartet – violinist Tuva Halse, vibraphonist Amund Stenøien, drummer August Glännestrand, and Alex Ventling on piano and synth – first met at Trondheim’s renowned NTNU Jazzlinja and have since developed a distinctive ensemble identity. With its unusual instrumentation and focus on dynamic tension, Wavemakers functions as a “groove-organism,” where each instrument weaves into a larger tapestry of shifting rhythmic webs and evolving textures.

Recorded in Norway, the music draws on an array of influences, from chamber-music intimacy to Nordic jazz, from minimalism to impressionistic soundscapes. Each piece is carefully written and arranged for the individual voices in the band to unlock subtle blends and evolving waves of sound with a contemporary edge.

Guest vocalist Sissel Vera Pettersen appears on Omaha, a track inspired by the New Zealand beach where Ventling learned to walk as a child, while Four Refractions showcases the quartet’s signature rhythmic shifts – a musical prism refracting light into new directions and colours. Live performance videos for these pieces, featuring visuals by Ventling and creative lighting by light-artist Pekka Stokke will accompany the release.

Ventling has built an international career shaped by deep musical training and wide-ranging collaborations. After studies in Basel, Berlin, Copenhagen, and Trondheim, he has established himself on the Norwegian and wider European jazz scenes with projects including The View (with Phelan Burgoyne) and In Orbit (with Hein Westgaard). His poetic, organic piano style reflects both his background in classical and contemporary jazz, as well as his practice of Vipassana meditation – a discipline that continues to inform his improvisational language. Beyond performance, he is also an active filmmaker and curator of the DUO Trondheim series.

Following the release, the band will embark on their most ambitious tour to date, including concerts in Norway, Germany, Switzerland, and a first international stretch across New Zealand, Australia, and Japan in early 2026

Line up

Track Listing

Tracking
Omaha (feat. Sissel Vera Pettersen)
Trondheim I
Trondheim II
Traces
Trondheim III
January
Spiral
Four Refractions

PR Quotes

Jazzthetik Magazine (DE)
“Music that is creative and full of ideas, with extraordinary, fascinating imagination“

Paris-move (FR)
“Let your mind drift, let your memories resurface, and you may find yourself somewhere between sound and cinema, between illusion and truth, where Ventling’s music quietly waits.”

Jazz in Family (IT)
“like observing the light changing incidence on a Nordic landscape”

Maxazine (NL)
“a quartet perfectly in sync and effortlessly riding the waves Ventling composes… feels closer to a soundtrack experience”

Esensja (PL)
“charming, dark melodies characteristic of Nordic jazz”

Blue in Green (UK)
“yet another testament to Ross McHenry’s phenomenal and ever-evolving mastery that has garnered without doubt one of his most compelling projects to date.”

Musik an sich (DE)
“very warm, very emotional and poetic“

Wilderness Viking (NO)
“If you enjoy easygoing and elegant mainly instrumental jazz where floating and flowing textures in wavelike patterns is the common denominator, and enjoy artists exploring such landscapes that takes the occasional side step into a more minimalist and expressive territory, then this most recent studio production of Alex Ventling may well tickle your fancy”

JazzMania (BE)
“Alex Ventling has assembled a unique quartet that develops its own vision of music through textures that convey an emotionally charged sonic construction!”

Backseat Mafia (UK)
“an album which resonates fulfilment and allows you to drift within its panorama”

Mainly Piano (USA)
“a fascinating album…soulful and hypnotic”

Jazz Views (UK)
“calm, confident, and alive in their sound”

Salt-peanuts (DK)
“I think Alex Ventling and his excellent fellow musicians have made a relatively melancholic and nice album, which is appropriate at a time when winter is about to descend upon us, both in the rainy city of Trondheim and along the coast southwards where one sits in the study and finds a pleasant calm and well-being after listening to this release.”

La Habitacion del Jazz (ES)
“Ventling brings a voice of his own to melodies that are fragile, sophisticated and powerful at the same time”

Jazz Weekly (USA)
“emotive pastels are drawn by Alex Ventling“

Hilary Seabrook (UK)
“I can promise you will discover (or rediscover) the beauty of vibes and violin as a combination above piano/synth and drums.”