bio 

Romain Collin is a Grammy-nominated pianist who has been praised by NPR as a "visionary composer" and hailed by the Boston Globe as one of the "leading lights of a new breed of jazz players." The NY-based, French- American musician has developed “a highly personal and contemporary vision” (A Blog Supreme, NPR), a style “unique and engaging without obvious influences” (All About Jazz) that seamlessly blends improvisation, electronic sound design, indie rock, and film scoring.

Collin attended Berklee College of Music ('04), where he majored in Music Synthesis. He then went on to graduate from the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz in 2007, where he held a Full Scholarship as the pianist of an ensemble handpicked by Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, and Terence Blanchard. Collin's debut album as a leader, The Rise and Fall of Pipokuhn (Fresh Sound, 2009), was hailed as "an astonishingly mature and ambitious debut that secures Collin a placeholder in the continuing evolution of the grand tradition of the piano trio" by All About Jazz. He was soon after invited by legendary pianist Marian McPartland to her prestigious Piano Jazz show on NPR to discuss his artistic vision and perform solo piano. In 2012, Collin released his second album as a leader, The Calling (Palmetto), described as "a tour de force that showcases Collin’s strengths as an accomplished composer and virtuoso pianist of the highest order" by JazzEd Magazine, and as “a work of art that is worthy of being held onto for generations to come” (Eric Sandler, The Revivalist). His third release, Press Enter (ACT, 2015), was described by the New York Times as a "winning new album," hailed by Jazz journal, UK as an "absolute masterpiece," and praised by All About Jazz as an "extraordinary album.” Collin's 2019 releas e,Lights… (XM), has been celebrated as "a unique voice, a crystal clear vision" by UK VIBE. Romain’s latest record, Dust (E2/ Edition, 2025), is an intimate solo piano album accompanied by a series of short films that will be exhibited in contemporary art galleries in the US and Europe.

Collin is a co-leader of several critically acclaimed projects, among them a group with harmonica virtuoso Gregoire Maret and guitarist Bill Frisell, which released Americana (ACT, 2019) and earned a Grammy® nomination for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album. He has released two duo records with singer Sachal Vasandani, Midnight Shelter (Edition, 2021) and Still Life (Edition, 2022), which have been praised by RadioFrance as “music that speaks with emotion and feeling, that does not allow virtuosity to take precedence over the meaning, expression and feeling of the song”. Collin is set to release a record in collaboration with Björk’s longtime engineer and music director, Bergur Thorisson. 

In 2022, Collin founded FOSS, a project that combines indie electro-pop with breathtaking visuals. FOSS has performed at Burning Man's famed Robot Heart, at Catharsis in collaboration with digital artist Refik Anadol and visionary architect Arthur Mamou-Mani, at the Shed for the Sonic Sphere, as well as at various contemporary art galleries and other cutting-edge performing arts venues. To accompany the project, Collin directed the feature film FOSS: Shapeless (2023), which won Best Experimental Film at the Golden Lion International Film Festival and made the official selection at the Future Contingents Film Festival.

Romain has composed numerous scores for films such as This Land (a feature documentary directed by Matthew Palmer), Anthem and Syria (mini-documentaries produced by Peace Nobel Prize Laureate Malala Yousafzai), Le Brésil par la Côte (five-part feature documentary, 2014), Les Airventuriers (two-part feature documentary, 2015), various short documentaries for the United Nations Refugee Agency as well as numerous award-wining short movies.