A pianist and composer whose work has received nearly universal acclaim in a career spanning 30 years, Fred Hersch is among the foremost artists in the world of jazz today. Described as ‘a master who plays it his way’ by The New York Times, Hersch has released more than two dozen albums as a solo artist or bandleader, two of which were nominated for Grammy® awards for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance. In 2007, he was nominated for a Grammy® Award for Best Instrumental Composition. He has collaborated with an extraordinary range of major artists in both the jazz and classical worlds including Joe Henderson, Stan Getz, Charlie Haden, Gary Burton, Dawn Upshaw, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Jeffrey Kahane, Christopher O’Riley, Renée Fleming and dozens of others. 

Hersch is the recipient of a 2003 Guggenheim Fellowship in composition and has received grants from both The National Endowment for the Arts and Meet the Composer as well as commissions from The Doris Duke Foundation and the Irwin S. Gilmore Keyboard Foundation, among many others. He has been awarded six composition residencies at The MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, NH and a Rockefeller Fellowship for a composition residency in Bellagio, Italy. He has served on the faculty of the New England Conservatory, The Manhattan School of Music and other institutions.