Nicole Durrer was born in Einsiedeln, Switzerland. She is a singer and Jazz musician and lives in Heiden. At the age of nine, she started taking oboe lessons and was part of a choir ensemble. She played the oboe in the youth orchestra Schwyz and made her first appearance as a vocalist in local Jazz-Rock bands.
Alongside her passion for music and singing, she’s an avid ski enthusiast since an early age and spent every free minute with intensive ski training up in the Alps. In 2011, she received her pedagogic and artistic Jazz diploma in vocal Jazz at the Jazz school St. Gallen.
With her Jazz diploma band “Endee Quintett”, Nicole Durrer played occasionally at the Lokremise St. Gallen. In 2013, the Nicole Durrer Trio performed at the premier of the world theatre Einsiedeln in the monastery hall. Further performances followed at the Chupferturm Schwyz and Herzbaracke Zurich.
Since 2007, she’s been working side by side with fellow musician and guitarist Adrian Emanuel Egli. Currently she sings and composes for the quartet formation Nicole Durrer. The compositions “Dä Steigadä Changes Your Rhythm” and “Red is the Rose” are frequently played on Radio Swiss Jazz.
In April 2016 Nicole Durrers first record “LIALAI” is released on the Swiss Jazz label Unit Records, recorded with guitarist Adrian Egli, contrabassist Marc Jenny and drummer Lukas Meier. Nicole Durrer performs mainly her own creations inspired by the traditional Jazz world, captivating audiences with her versatile, warm and melancholic voice. Occasionally she breaks with the common Jazz traditions and looses herself in various realms of genres from which she creates her own wordless compositions. The acoustic pattern subsists on the intimate atmosphere created by the modest accompanying of the rhythm section, the reduced guitar sound and the expressive voice.
The Nicole Durrer Quartet started touring in the beginning of 2019 and still is. With Drummer Carlo Lorenzi, e-bassist Sandro Heule and guitarist Adrian Egli, a new EP will be released this fall. New compositions by Adrian Egli are emerging and will be realised within the Nicole Durrer Quartet.
Next to being a mother of two, Nicole Durrer works as a music and vocal teacher. She teaches vocals and choir at the music schools in Wittenbach, Waldkirch-Bernhardzell and in Heiden.
Nicole Durrer Quartet – warm, contemporary vocal jazz
The voice; light, raw and husky, then crystal clear and with a hint of bell tones depicts the atmosphere of the sound created by the Nicole Durrer Quartet. The warm and sensitive vocals carry you with the support of the guitar through virtuous unisono lines, that allows you to indulge in a whirlwind of drum and bass improvisations. The music lives on calm and intense compositions, leaving a lot of room for the musician’s improvisation and creation. Sometimes faint and purling, other times intense and full of energy is how the Nicole Durrer Quartet strikes up.

www.nicoledurrer.ch