The NOCCA Institute presents
THE FRED HERSCH TRIO
Saturday, January 21 at 8pm
NOCCA’s Freda Lupin Memorial Hall
2800 Chartres Street
CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS or call 504 940 2900!
Join The NOCCA Institute for a very special evening with jazz pianist Fred Hersch. Called “the most arrestingly innovative pianist in jazz over the last decade” by Vanity Fair — alongside hundreds of other accolades — Mr. Hersch will appear with his trio in NOCCA’s Freda Lupin Memorial Hall for one night only on Saturday, January 21, 2012 at 8pm. Tickets are $30 and can be purchased by clicking here or by calling 504 940 2900.
Mr. Hersch’s rare appearance in New Orleans will include several very special events, including a master class for NOCCA’s talented Jazz students. A passionate advocate for HIV & AIDS causes, Mr. Hersch will also conduct outreach activities in conjunction with the NO/AIDS Task Force.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY ABOUT PIANIST FRED HERSCH
“A master who plays it his way.” — Ben Ratliff, The New York Times
“…the most arrestingly innovative pianist in jazz over the last decade or so.” — Tad Hendrikson, Vanity Fair
“…a pianist, composer and conceptualist of rare imaginative power.” – Nate Chinen, The New York Times
“Hersch’s work has developed an intensity of intelligence and emotional directness unparalleled among his peers.” — Steve Futterman, The New Yorker
“He’s as cutting-edge as any of the younger lions yet as true to the melody and bop tradition as any of the elder statesmen.” — Will Friedwald, The Wall Street Journal
“Hersch is in a musical league all his own.” – Jon Regan, Keyboard Magazine
“Hersch is consistently able to excavate deep emotions from the wellspring of timeless beauty, ancient traditions, and always the true spirit of modern jazz.” — Michael G. Nastos, Billboard
“…a modern master.” — Ted Panken, Downbeat
“Singular among the trailblazers of their art, a largely unsung innovator of this borderless, individualistic jazz—a jazz for the 21st century—is the pianist and composer Fred Hersch.” — David Hajdu, The New York Times Sunday Magazine
“…one of the small handful of brilliant musicians of his generation.” — Fred Bouchard, Downbeat
“…one of the great masters of jazz piano.” — David Adler, New York City Jazz Record Review
“… jazz does not get any better.” — Peter Hum, The Ottawa Citizen
“…truly transcendant.” — Bob Blumenthal, The Boston Globe
BIOGRAPHY
Pianist and composer Fred Hersch has been called a “one of the small handful of brilliant musicians of his generation” by Downbeat and has earned a place among the foremost jazz artists in the world today. From the late 70’s onward as a sideman to jazz legends including Joe Henderson, Art Farmer and Stan Getz, he has solidified a reputation as a versatile master of jazz piano, as well as a relentlessly probing composer and conceptualist. He is widely recognized for his ability to steadfastly create a unique body of original works while reinventing the standard jazz repertoire – investing time-tested classics with keen insight, fresh ideas and extraordinary technique. Whether unaccompanied, in duo, working with trios and quintets, Hersch has explored the jazz tradition to its fullest even as he opens new and undiscovered doors. Hersch’s numerous accomplishments include a 2003 Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship for composition, two Grammy nominations for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance and a Grammy® nomination for Best Instrumental Composition. He has appeared on over one hundred recordings, including more than two-dozen albums as bandleader/solo pianist.
Hersch is considered to be the most prolific and widely-praised solo jazz pianist of his generation. In 2006, Palmetto Records released the solo CD Fred Hersch in Amsterdam: Live at the Bimhuis; its release led to Hersch becoming the first pianist in the 70-year history of New York’s legendary Village Vanguard to play an entire week as a solo pianist. His newest solo CD Alone at the Vanguard (Palmetto), was recorded live at the legendary club. 2009 saw the release of his eighth solo disc Fred Hersch Plays Jobim on Sunnyside, cited as one of the Top Ten jazz releases of 2009 by NPR and by the Wall Street Journal. In addition, he leads a trio, a quintet and has ongoing special collaborations with jazz and classical instrumentalists and vocalists around the world. A recent project features an unconventional line-up of piano, trumpet, voice and percussion; The Fred Hersch Pocket Orchestra: Live at Jazz Standard came out in April 2009 on Sunnyside Records. His latest release is The Fred Hersch Trio: Whirl, which came out in June 2010 on Palmetto Records.
His career as a performer has been greatly enhanced by his composing activities, a vital part of nearly all of his live concerts and recordings. May 2011 saw the premiere of My Coma Dreams, a full-evening work for 11 instruments, actor/singer and animation/multimedia. In 2003, Hersch created Leaves of Grass (Palmetto Records), a large-scale setting of Walt Whitman’s poetry for two voices (Kurt Elling and Kate McGarry) and an instrumental octet; the work was presented in March 2005 in a sold-out performance at Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall as part of a six-city US tour. Hersch has toured with concert pianist Christopher O’Riley (“Heard Fresh: Music for Two Pianos”) and he has also collaborated with artists ranging from Bill Frisell, Toots Thielemans and Charlie Haden to singers Renée Fleming, Norma Winstone and Audra McDonald. He has received commissions from The Gilmore Keyboard Festival, The Doris Duke Foundation, The Miller Theatre at Columbia University, The Gramercy Trio and The Brooklyn Youth Chorus. Naxos Records has released Fred Hersch: Concert Music 2001-2006, a disc of his “classical” works.
Hersch has acted as a passionate spokesman and fund-raiser for AIDS services and education agencies since 1993. He has produced and performed on four benefit recordings and at numerous concerts for the charities Classical Action: Performing Arts Against AIDS and Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS that have raised over $250,000 to date.
Hersch has been featured on CBS Sunday Morning with Dr. Billy Taylor and on a wide variety of National Public Radio programs including Fresh Air, Jazz Set, Studio 360, and Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz. Hersch has also been awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship, grants from The National Endowment for the Arts and Meet the Composer, and six composition residencies at The MacDowell Colony. He conducted a Professional Training Workshop for Young Musicians at The Weill Institute at Carnegie Hall in 2008. A committed educator, he has taught at The New School and Manhattan School of Music; he is currently a visiting professor at Western Michigan University and on the Jazz Studies faculty of both the Juilliard School and The New England Conservatory.