Renee Rosnes is a Canadian jazz pianist of whom the Ottawa Citizen said in a 2015 concert review "mainstream jazz doesn't get any better". Her latest release, 'Beloved of the Sky' with vibraphonist Steve Nelson, bassist Peter Washington, saxophonist Chris Potter, and drummer Lenny White, which came out in April 2018, went to number 25 on the Billboard Jazz Albums Chart. Born in Saskatchewan she learned to play the piano as a child and joined her high school jazz band as a teenager. Moving to Vancouver, she began her professional career playing with jazz icons such as Oscar Peterson, Sarah Vaughan, Freddie Hubbard and Branford and Wynton Marsalis. She had stints in New York in the 1980s with saxophonist Wayne Shorter and trombonist J.J. Johnson and played with the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band.
Signed to the Blue Note label, she made her recording debut with 'Face to Face' in 1989 and went on to record 17 more albums. Two other recordings landed on Billboard's Jazz Albums Chart - 'Written On the Rocks' (2016) which peaked at number 22 and 'Double Portrait' (2010) which reached number 41. She has played on albums by Tony Bennett, Renée Fleming and Jimmy Greene and she performs in an all-star group called Artemis along with trumpeter Ingrid Jensen, tenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana, clarinetist Anat Cohen, bassist Noriko Ueda and drummer Allison Miller plus vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant. Her 2018 schedule was to included performances at the Blue Note Jazz Club in New York City, Scullers Jazz Club in Boston and with Artemis at the Newport Jazz Festival in August.
