Felix Lemerle

Félix Lemerle is a jazz guitarist and composer based in Brooklyn who grew up in Paris, where his father, a jazz bassist, first drew him toward the music. Initially trained as a classical pianist, he turned to guitar and jazz as a teenager and earned a degree in Jazz and Improvised Music from the CRR de Paris before moving to New York as a Fulbright Scholar to complete a master's in jazz performance at CUNY Queens College. He later joined the Artist Diploma program in Jazz Studies at Juilliard. Lemerle won first prize at the 2012 Eddie Lang Guitar Contest in Italy and second prize at the 2015 Jarek Smietana Guitar Competition in Poland, whose jury included John Abercrombie, Mike Stern, and Ed Cherry. His debut album, Blues for the End of Time, features Jimmy Cobb, Bertha Hope, Ari Roland, and Samuel Lerner, and he leads his own trio around New York while also playing in the collaborative band Raise Four.