Adelphi University is pleased to welcome solo jazz pianist Fred Hersch as he performs his diverse repertoire. The event, “A Jazz Genius!" will take place on April 17, 2010, at 8:00 p.m. in Adelphi's Performing Arts Center, Concert Hall, 1 South Avenue, Garden City, NY. He will lead a free two-hour jazz master class with the Adelphi Jazz Ensemble earlier in the day.
Mr. Hersch comes to Adelphi following a recent European concert tour through Belgium, Austria, and Portugal, and a solo concert at the Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall. His unique style has won much acclaim and earned him features on the CBS Sunday Morning Show with Dr. Billy Taylor, National Public Radio programs such as Fresh Air, Jazz Set, Studio 360, and Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz. He is considered a master American jazz pianist, and has overcome immense obstacles to reach this point in his life and career. The New York Times detailed his personal struggle and accomplishments in a Sunday Magazine cover story, which hailed him as “a largely unsung innovator of this borderless, individualistic jazz -- a jazz for the 21st century."
In addition to his work as a soloist performer, Mr. Hersch has partnered with pianist Jeffrey Kahane and violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, as well as with vocal sopranos Rene Fleming and Dawn Upshaw. He has also played with orchestras across the United States and Europe, including the Pittsburgh, Utah, Vermont, and Santa Rosa Symphonies; the Toronto Sinfonietta, the BBC Radio Orchestra, Hungary's Mendelssohn Chamber Orchestra, and the Sinfonietta Caracas of Venezuela. He also performed with both the Eos and Concordia Orchestras in New York City.
An avid spokesman and fundraiser for AIDS services and education, Mr. Hersch produced and performed on four benefit recordings, and has played at numerous concerts for charities. Other distinctions include a 2003 Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship for composition, a Rockefeller Fellowship for a composition residency at the Bellagio Center in Italy, two Grammy nominations for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, and another Grammy nomination for Best Instrumental Composition. He is a four-time winner of the Gay and Lesbian American Music Award (GLAMA), and has been nominated three times for a Jazz Journalists' Association Award (2005 for Composer of the Year; 2006 for Album of the Year and Jazz Pianist of the Year).
Mr. Hersch graduated with honors from the New England Conservatory in Boston in 1977.
Mr. Hersch comes to Adelphi following a recent European concert tour through Belgium, Austria, and Portugal, and a solo concert at the Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall. His unique style has won much acclaim and earned him features on the CBS Sunday Morning Show with Dr. Billy Taylor, National Public Radio programs such as Fresh Air, Jazz Set, Studio 360, and Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz. He is considered a master American jazz pianist, and has overcome immense obstacles to reach this point in his life and career. The New York Times detailed his personal struggle and accomplishments in a Sunday Magazine cover story, which hailed him as “a largely unsung innovator of this borderless, individualistic jazz -- a jazz for the 21st century."
In addition to his work as a soloist performer, Mr. Hersch has partnered with pianist Jeffrey Kahane and violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, as well as with vocal sopranos Rene Fleming and Dawn Upshaw. He has also played with orchestras across the United States and Europe, including the Pittsburgh, Utah, Vermont, and Santa Rosa Symphonies; the Toronto Sinfonietta, the BBC Radio Orchestra, Hungary's Mendelssohn Chamber Orchestra, and the Sinfonietta Caracas of Venezuela. He also performed with both the Eos and Concordia Orchestras in New York City.
An avid spokesman and fundraiser for AIDS services and education, Mr. Hersch produced and performed on four benefit recordings, and has played at numerous concerts for charities. Other distinctions include a 2003 Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship for composition, a Rockefeller Fellowship for a composition residency at the Bellagio Center in Italy, two Grammy nominations for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, and another Grammy nomination for Best Instrumental Composition. He is a four-time winner of the Gay and Lesbian American Music Award (GLAMA), and has been nominated three times for a Jazz Journalists' Association Award (2005 for Composer of the Year; 2006 for Album of the Year and Jazz Pianist of the Year).
Mr. Hersch graduated with honors from the New England Conservatory in Boston in 1977.
