Fred Hersch, solo piano
Sunday, March 10, 2024
7:30 PM
The spring series opens on Sunday, March 10, with a long-awaited return by celebrated jazz pianist Fred Hersch, who last appeared on the Athenaeum series in 2016 with clarinetist Anat Cohen. A select member of jazz’s piano pantheon, Hersch is a pervasively influential creative force who has shaped jazz music’s course over more than three decades as an improviser, composer, educator, bandleader, collaborator, and recording artist. He has been proclaimed “the most arrestingly innovative pianist in jazz over the last decade” by Vanity Fair, “an elegant force of musical invention” by the Los Angeles Times, and “a living legend” by The New Yorker. A 15-time Grammy nominee, Hersch has regularly garnered jazz’s most prestigious awards, including recent distinctions as a 2016 Doris Duke Artist, 2016 and 2018 Jazz Pianist of the Year from the Jazz Journalists Association, and the 2017 Prix Honorem de Jazz from L’Acádemie Charles Cros for the totality of his career.
