Melissa Weikart and her piano have proceeded through life in step, from her early classical training to the experimental practice that defines her work today. Winner of the instrumentalist prize at the 2023 La Défense National Jazz Competition and the 2022 Nancy Jazz Pulsations emerging artist award, the Franco-American musician has released two EPs and an album as a solo artist, and two albums—Surprise and Secret—with her electronic duo Beatrice Melissa. A student of jazz and ’70s folk-pop, and a keen lover of improvisation since her time at the New England Conservatory in Boston, Weikart has always conjured the confessional candor of the singer-songwriter in her music, even as she dispenses her lyrics across rich, shifting, dreamlike tableaux.

 

With new single "Crash", she offers a hazy telephone-hour ode, a message in a bottle, to connections new and old - giving us a glimpse of an upcoming opus where she pushes her sound further than ever before.