Bio

“The jazz saxophonist is currently a hot commodity in Central Europe” writes Austrian Music Export about saxophonist and composer Yvonne Moriel. She performs with internationally successful bands such as Shake Stew, the renowned Swiss Jazz Orchestra, Christian Muthspiel’s Orjazztra and numerous other ensembles. The musician grew up in Tyrol and has spent the last few years in Zurich and Vienna. She studied both classical and jazz saxophone but has since focused on jazz, improvised, and contemporary music. In 2024 she received the Austrian Jazz Award as Best Newcomer.

In 2023, she debuted with Swiss Jazz Prize winner Christoph Grab’s quartet at the Leibnitz Jazz Festival and with four concerts at the Saalfelden Jazz Festival, including her own quartet, yvonne moriel :: sweetlife. In this project, founded in 2022, she merges jazz with dub and electronic music. The band’s individuality and artistic quality quickly garnered international attention. sweetlife was selected by Austrian Music Export as one of the country’s most promising young jazz bands and was introduced to an international professional audience at the Kickjazz Festival. Recently, the project was chosen as New Austrian Sound of Music - act for 2025/26. Moriel is also a monthly performer at Vienna’s Porgy & Bess club from 2022 to 2024 with the stage bands of Christoph Cech and Ralph Mothwurf. Together with clarinetist Vincent Pongrácz she organised the 2024 season of Vienna-based experimental concert-series Synesthetic Wednesday where several new projects and compositions with various artists were created. Additionally, she works across genres with artists and bands like the concert- halls-filling classical ensemble Franui, vocal artist and performer Ankathie Koi, indie-electro band Yukno, Viennese rapper Bibiza, and many more. In March 2023, her single “Zurich,” including a dub edit by Sam Irl, was released, which she produced for the hip-hop label Mellowax and Sony Denmark.
She is part of several exciting new collaborations, bands, and compositional projects, including a duo with cellist Sophie Abraham, the electronic free jazz quartet Moriel/Kranabetter/Pongrácz/Duit, a trio with Judith Schwarz and Alois Eberl, and the Sophie Hassfurther Octet. In November 2024, the first EP of her project sweetlife was released, with a debut album planned for 2025.