Growing up in a small mountain village in Switzerland, embedded in a musical environment, the pianist Gisela Horat started her career with a traditional classic piano education. She developed over this period the desire to write and play her own compositions.

Gisela Horat's compositions are inspired by her own experiences and impressions. Through improvisation from the moment and mutual impulses, the music sounds different each time, oscillates between tranquillity and dynamics and moves somewhere between pop, jazz, improvisation and minimal music. But the music always tells stories, creates moods and excitement and leaves the audience room for his own pictures.

Apart from the influences of Eric Satie, Bill Evans, Enrico Pieranunzi, Esbjörn Svensson and Sylvie Courvoisier, the classical background of Gisela is also noticeable. This gives a harmonic frame to the sounds pictorial and lyrical playing and thus appealing to an audience that normally has no access to jazz music.

She (Gisela Horat) is now regarded as one of Switzerland’s most creative and distinguished jazz pianists. InMusic_127 September/October 2025: Frank Zöllner

With a single note that becomes a resonating body, Horat explores the depths of space, very much in the tradition of Irène Schweizer........Intense, uncompromising… a requiem for a lost era. Jazzthing 160 September/October 2025: Maxi Bröcking

A pianist who prioritises precise expression whilst still conveying a wealth of emotion; she has been doing so for some time now in her excellent trio. For the Swiss pianist GISELA HORAT, it has been a winding path: from a mountain village via the natural sciences to the jazz clubs; where, sadly, she performs all too rarely. Manfred Papst, Jazzpodium 12-25/1-26

Gisela Horat is the most impressive Helvetic keyboard artist after Irene Schweizer - a sensational discovery. “Fono Forum 2/2024

Discography Gisela Horat:

Jazz im Duo (Maria Geiger, violin, Gisela Horat, piano), Begegnungen, coproduction DRS2, self-published 2002

Verkehrte Welt (Gisela Horat, Piano), self-published, 2013

Gisela Horat Trio Live (Gisela Horat, piano and composition, Simon Iten, double bass, Samuel Büttiker, drums), self-published, 2015

Gisela Horat Trio (Gisela Horat, piano and composition, Simon Iten, double bass, Samuel Büttiker, drums), Schächäbach, self-published, 2017

Gisela Horat Trio (Gisela Horat, piano and composition, Simon Iten, double bass, Samuel Büttiker, drums), Warten, self-published, 2019

Gisela Horat Vol. 1 (Gisela Horat, piano and composition), self-published, 2020

Gisela Horat Trio (Gisela Horat, piano and composition, Simon Iten, double bass, Samuel Büttiker, drums), “2020”, self-published, 2021

Gisela Horat Trio (Gisela Horat, piano and composition, Simon Iten, double bass, Samuel Büttiker, drums), “erzählen”, self-published, 2023

Gisela Horat Vol. 2 (Gisela Horat, piano and composition), self-published, 2023

Gisela Horat Trio (Gisela Horat, piano and composition, Simon Iten, double bass, Samuel Büttiker, drums), Live in Leipzig, Unit Records Troxler Art Edition, 2025

Gisela Horat Trio Solo (Gisela Horat, piano and composition, Simon Iten, double bass, Samuel Büttiker, drums), Unit Records Troxler Art Edition, release 25 September 2026