Nora Germain

With over 5 million views on Instagram, she is well on her way to achieving her goal of decidedly reintroducing jazz violin to the world this century. Germain has released 13 of her own recordings as well as an inspirational book, and has performed and/ or recorded with JMSN, Jon Batiste (including on the Grammy-winning album “Big Money”), Jacob Collier, KNOWER, Postmodern Jukebox, Martin Taylor, Tommy Emmanuel, Jeff Goldblum, Lewis Capaldi, Sam Smith and many others. She includes Hazel Scott, Michael Jordan and Princess Diana among her inspirations, and was recently invited to visit the home of none other than the late Stephane Grappelli, whom Germain refers to as the greatest jazz violinist of all time. She plays for the heart of the general public, and is in keen and relentless pursuit of excellence — excellence in tone, in intonation, and in her ability to connect with the average person. “I’m quite pleased when people who previously had no interest in violin, nor jazz, and likely had never heard of jazz violin — tell me that they now count themselves as fans.” Germain comes from a musical family, in which her parents met playing violin in the symphony and her father later became a violin luthier. “I’m working class,” she says. “Working, with class.” British music legend John Altman has praised Germain as “the best jazz violinist in the world, bar none.” She has also played on hundreds of recordings with other artists, and tells her followers, “This century needs swing,” and she’s “winding up.”

Photo by Don Hannah.