Mary Halvorson is a Brooklyn-based guitarist, composer and recording artist for Nonesuch Records. Her distinctive sound and innovative approach to her instrument have earned her widespread recognition over the past two decades, including numerous best-of-the-year lists, a 2019 MacArthur Foundation fellowship and Guitarist of the Year honors in the DownBeat Critics Poll for the past nine years. When not leading her own award-winning bands, she can be heard in a wide variety of creative partnerships and on more than 75 releases as a co-leader or sidewoman.

 

Her most recent recording, About Ghosts, was selected as the best new jazz album of 2025 by NPR Music, Slate and the voters in both the 20th Annual Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll and the 18th International Critics Poll, which also named her Composer and Guitarist of the Year. "Mary Halvorson refuses to be defined, let alone confined," wrote A.D. Amarosi in his review for DownBeat. "If Halvorson is the future of jazz," added Chris Ingalls in PopMatters, "we are in tremendously gifted hands."

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This year she'll be focusing on her newest group, Canis Major, featuring Dave Adewumi (trumpet), Henry Fraser (bass) and Tomas Fujiwara (drums). After playing a handful of select dates around New York over the past several months, the quartet will be touring for the first time across the U.S. and in Europe beginning in the Spring. "Canis Major feels like the start of something very special," she explains. "The music has been growing exponentially each time we play. It's been many years since I've led a smaller band, and I've really been enjoying the depth, interplay and intensity that this configuration brings to my music."

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Mary Halvorson plays a Flip Scipio guitar, and uses Apollo picks and D'Addario strings.