Musician of the Year by italian Jazz revue Musica jazz, in 1989
* The album "The Night Gone by" received a Choc JazzMan 1996, as the best international
jazz album
* Django d'Or Prize in 1997, as the Best european Jazz musician

Pianist, composer and arranger, Enrico Pieranunzi was born in Rome (Italy) in 1949.
When he was only five and half years old, he began studyng piano.
At the same time, his father started introducing him to the wonders and challeriges of jazz improvisation as well. From then on Enrico kept on following a double road in music. In fact he developed his jazz style while studying classical piano.

When he was nineteen, he began his professional career in Italy and since then he worked with an abundance of bands, both italian units and groups led by Americans.
He rremarkably wide-ranging experiences include collaborations with jazz luminaries such as Johnny Griffin, Chet Baker, Art Farmer, Lee Konitz, Jim Hall.

Since 1975, Pieranunzi has led his own groups, mostly trios, with wich he has played clubs and festivals all over Europe (Zurich, Ravenna, Berlin, Umbria Jazz, Madrid, Copenhagen, Montreal, Jerusalem).
He also used to perform as unaccompanied pianist and still does to this very day.

In 1984, Pieranunzi formed an american Trio with Marc Johnson and Joey Baron.
After their first album together (New Lands, Timeless), McCoy Tyner described Pieranunzi as "a new addition to the top-jazz pianoworld". In 1986, another highly aprreciated album (Deep Down, Soul Note) was recorded by them.
No Man's Land (1989 with Marc Johnson and Steve Houghton) and First Song (1990 with Charlie Haden and Billy Higgins), both for Soul Note, made Pizeranunzi?s experience with american trios even richer and wider. As a close to his liner notes of the latter, well-know jazz writer Nat Hentoff stated "these three have created music here that will last long beyond trends and fads because it is basic as your life".

Voted Musician of the Year in the Musica Jazz critics poll (1989), Pieranunzi has been said "to reveal himself as a very original musician and a talented composer, able to travel the high road with his own ideas and remarkable musical sensitivity".

His main influences come from jazz, from classical composers and from his very deep italian roots: Charlie Parker, Chet Baker, McCoy Tyner, Chick Corea, Bill Evans, Gabriel Fauré, Claude Debussy, Darius Milhaud, Aaron Copland, Johannes Brahms, Paul Himdemith, roman and mediteranean popular music.

He has written more than 150 compositions, including "Night Bird" recorded several times by Chet Baker and performed by many others.