Nat Bartsch is a twice ARIA-nominated Australian pianist and composer known for her ethereal, meditative, lyrical music. Her music deftly walks across a spectrum from neoclassical to jazz, also dipping into the worlds of chamber music, children’s music and post-rock. She incorporates a wide range of influences including Arvo Pärt, Debussy, Nils Frahm, Sigur Ros, Nik Bärtsch, Stuart Greenbaum and Sufjan Stevens. Her music is played across the world by people from all walks of life, often in deeply personal moments: literally from the birthing suite, to the final hours before death. She has released eight albums, toured domestically and internationally, and collaborated with many leading Australian artists including Luke Howard, Grigoryan Brothers, Back to Back Theatre, Inventi Ensemble, Teeny Tiny Stevies, Playschool and Plexus Collective. She recently established her own record label, Amica Records. She is proudly neurodivergent.
“Listening to Bartsch’s music is akin to feeling a reassuring hand resting on one’s shoulder. It’s music that invites contemplation, and that radiates tenderness, empathy – and yes, hope.”
“You feel as if she’s opening her heart and speaking via the keyboard to you personally. Not a single note is false, and you come away from the experience replenished and grateful that music of such beauty is still being created in this world.”
Nat has become most well known for her lullabies, which, during early motherhood, saw her translate her gentle aesthetic into music with purpose. Nat created a suite of pieces designed to soothe babies to sleep, but also be meaningfully enjoyable for adults. After interviewing music therapists, she composed a series of pieces incorporating as many of their recommended parameters as possible (tempos similar to a mother’s heartbeat, gentle sounds, simple melodies and harmonies, ostinatos and repetition). Each piece is named after her newborn son’s stage of development at the time. The resulting album, Forever, and No Time At All was released in 2018 on ABC Classic. It is played regularly by many families, but also by people from all walks of life, including women in labour, autistic people, and people experiencing mental illness and grief.
In 2020, Nat released Forever More, a jazz sextet re-interpretation of her lullabies, which was nominated for an ARIA for Best Jazz Album. In May 2021 she released her critically acclaimed album Hope, for piano, string quartet and electronics. Nat received an ARIA nomination again for this release- Best Classical Album. In 2023 she again released a jazz-reinterpretation, also leaning into a lifetime love of post rock, titled Hope Renewed.
Nat is also a chamber music composer, with commissions for Grigoryan Brothers, Inventi Ensemble, Plexus Collective, Solstice Trio, Muses Trio, Matt Withers & Sally Whitwell and Melbourne Guitar Quartet. She is currently completing Masters in composition at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music. She also holds an Honours degree in jazz improvisation from the Victorian College of the Arts, and was bandleader of her own jazz piano trio for many years. This breadth of experience enables Nat to sit comfortably between genres, challenging assumptions of what a ‘classical’ or ‘jazz’ artist should be. Nat is one of a small handful of artists to be ARIA nominated in both jazz and classical categories in their career, and the first female instrumentalist. After several years releasing music for both ABC Jazz and ABC Classic, she has now established her own record label., Amica Records, for genre bending, kind music. Amica is created in collaboration with Canadian neoclassical label Moderna Records.
“Her beautiful piano playing shimmers with a joyfulness that she also conveys in person.”
Nat has also worked as keyboardist/vocalist in many contemporary genres, with artists including Teeny Tiny Stevies, Playschool live, Whitaker, Thndo, Timothy Coghill, Sweet Jean, Matt Corby, Ella Thompson and Circus Oz.
She is endorsed by Yamaha Pianos.
Awards and nominations
2023 Music Victoria Award nomination (Best Jazz Work - Hope Renewed)
2023 APRA Art Music Award (Jazz Work of the Year - Busy/Quiet)
2022 Music Victoria Award nomination (Arts Access Amplify Award)
2022 Bell Award nomination - Best Jazz Album (Forever More)
2022 AIR nomination - Best Independent Classical Album (Hope)
2021 ARIA nomination - Best Classical Album (Hope)
2021 Merlyn Myer Commission, Melbourne Recital Centre (The Glasshouse/Inventi Ensemble)
2021 Music Victoria Award nomination (Arts Access Amplify Award)
2021 Ormond Exhibitions Scholarship
2021 Allan Zavod Composition Prize
2020 ARIA nomination - Best Jazz Album (Forever More)
2020 Catherine Mary Sullivan scholarship
2020 Classical:NEXT Artistic Associate fellowship, APRA-AMCOS/AMC
2019 Johnny Dennis Music Award
2012 Will Poskitt Piano Scholarship
2010 Melbourne Prize for Music Development Award
2010 Bell Award nomination - Young Australian Jazz Artist of the Year
2007 Athenaeum Award - Best Improvisation Ensemble (Nat Bartsch Trio)
“Every note is chosen and played with the utmost love and care.”
“Her approach unites lyrical beauty with unsentimental abstraction in a fascinating way.”
Nat Bartsch Trio
Nat Bartsch with Tom Lee & Daniel Farrugia (Photo: Samara Clifford)
Active from 2008 to 2013, Nat Bartsch Trio was a contemporary jazz piano trio featuring Nat’s compositions and unique arrangements of contemporary popular music.They were known for creating ECM-inspired, melodic jazz that reached a wide audience of listeners.
The trio was initially formed in 2006 during studies in improvisation at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, with bassist Josh Holt and drummer Leigh Fisher (creating a debut EP and the acclaimed ABC Jazztrack album Springs, for All the Winters with Mal Stanley). In 2013 the trio re-formed with drummer Daniel Farrugia (Luke Howard Trio) and Tom Lee (Michelle Nicole Quartet), releasing the crowdfunded album To Sail, To Sing.
The trio toured Australia, Japan and Europe, including supporting Abdullah Ibrahim at the Jazz-Transfer festival in Germany, and performing in a temple in the mountains of Japan, as well as numerous Australian festivals.