For Immediate Release November 15, 2012

Contact: Leah Ammon, (408) 961-5814 lammon@montalvoarts.org

Fred Hersch, Solo Piano, Performs December 16

Most gifted pianist of his generation to give solo recital at Montalvo
The most arrestingly innovative pianist in jazz over the last decade or so Vanity Fair Magazine Singular among the trailblazers of their art [he plays] a jazz for the 21st century The New York Times SARATOGA, Calif. On Sunday, December 16, 7:30pm, a true musical legend will give a solo recital in the intimate Montalvo Carriage House Theatre: internationally-renowned pianist Fred Hersch. Only 300 tickets are available, and may be purchased through the Montalvo Box Office or Ticketmaster.com. The concert is presented as part of Montalvos Piano Masters Series. Herschs distinguished career is notable not only for the accolades he has won, but also for his personal triumphs in the face of illness and the work he has done to advance HIV and AIDS awareness and research.

Danger and Respect to the Bandstand: The Fearless Career of Fred Hersch An ambitiously creative and technically accomplished musician, Fred Hersch is well established as one of the finest living American jazz pianists. He also has significant achievements as a composer, bandleader, theatrical conceptualist, and collaborator. His style, recognizable for its fierce individuality as well as its lyric and playful sound, has been credited for inspiring such young pianists as Ethan Iverson, Jason Moran and Vijay Iyer. "Fred's musical world is a world where a lot of the developments of jazz history and all of music history come together in a very contemporary way," says jazz pianist Brad Mehldau, one of Hersch's students. "His style has a lot to do with thinking as an individual, and it has a lot to do with beauty."
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Born in Cincinnati in 1955, Hersch showed musical inclination at a very young age; he began composing small arrangements by age 7. By the time he was 10, he had a weekly spot performing on a local Sunday-morning kids' program, The Skipper Ryle Show. By the time he was 12, he had written his first symphony. His career began in earnest in New York City in the year 1977, where he moved after attending Grinnell College and spending time playing professionally on the Jazz circuit in Ohio. He moved into an apartment across the street from legendary jazz club Bradley's, where he spent as much time as he could, playing and informally apprenticing himself to the club performers. He released his first album, the aptly-named Forward Motion, in 1986 and has gone on to record more than 45 releases since then. His numerous awards include a 2003 Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship for composition, and five Grammy Award nominations over the course of his career. He has been awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship, grants from Chamber Music America, The National Endowment for the Arts and Meet the Composer, and seven composition residencies at The MacDowell Colony. He is the first artist in the 75-year history of New York's legendary Village Vanguard to play week-long engagements as a solo pianist. His second engagement at the Vanguard is documented on the 2011 album, Alone at the Vanguard. He has appeared on various National Public Radio programs including Fresh Air, Jazz Set, Studio 360, and has also appeared on CBS Sunday Morning. A committed educator, he has taught at The New School and Manhattan School of Music, and conducted a Professional Training Workshop for Young Musicians at The Weill Institute at Carnegie Hall. He is currently a visiting professor at Western Michigan University and on the Jazz Studies faculty of The New England Conservatory.

It either kills you or makes you stronger: Illness and Recovery Hersch's remarkable accomplishments are even more impressive when understood in the context of his struggles with his health over the past several decades. In 1986, the year he released his first recorded album, Hersch was diagnosed with HIV, which subsequently developed into full-blown AIDS. In 1993, he came out publicly about his illness and his sexual orientation, becoming one of the few openly gay performers in the jazz world. "At that time, it was kind of like a death sentence...there were no drugs," Hersch says. "So the whole of my career, these last 26 or 27 years, have been under that cloud. You know, 'Is this the last record I'm going to make?'" To advance AIDS and HIV awareness and fund research, Hersch has produced and performed on four benefit recordings and in numerous concerts for charities including Classical Action: Performing Arts Against AIDS and Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS that have raised over $250,000 to date. He has also been the keynote speaker and performer at international medical conferences in the U.S. and Europe.
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In 2008, his illness worsened, leading to advanced dementia. "The AIDS virus basically attacked my brain. I was pretty psychotic," recalls Hersch. A bout of pneumonia brought him to the hospital, where he was placed in a medically induced coma for two months. When he awoke, he had lost almost all motor function. He had to begin from scratch, relearning the most basic skills before he could even begin to address relearning to play the piano again. Through tremendous perseverance, Hersch not only regained his strength, but was able to channel his experiences into a critically acclaimed multimedia production for 11 instruments and voice, entitled, My Coma Dreams. "They say [this sort of thing] either kills you or makes you stronger, and I think in this case it made me stronger," Hersch says. After all his struggles, "I feel that I'm really playing pretty much at full strength, and many people have commented that I actually have more energy and more focus now," he says. His most recent honors, including two 2011 and two 2012 Grammy Award nominations and the 2012 Grand Prix du Disque by the Acadmie Charles Cros in France for his most recent album Alone at the Vanguard are a testament to his strength of will and exceptional talent.

Fred Hersch: Solo Piano What: Performance by living jazz legend Fred Hersch When: Sunday, December 16, at 7:30pm Where: Carriage House Theatre, Montalvo Arts Center, 15400 Montalvo Road, Saratoga, CA Admission: General: $60/$55|| Members: $40/$36. Tickets available at ticketmaster.com and through the Montalvo Box Office at 408-961-5858, M-F, 10am-4pm.

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Now celebrating its centennial year, Montalvo Arts Center is an oasis of culture and nature whose mission is to create and present arts of all types, nurture artists, and use our historic Villa, buildings, and grounds in innovative ways that engage people in the creative process. Located in Silicon Valley's Saratoga hills, Montalvo occupies a Mediterranean-style Villa, built in 1912 by Senator James Duval Phelan, surrounded by 175 stunning acres, including the campus of our international Lucas Artists Residency Program. Senator Phelan bequeathed the villa and grounds to the people of California for the encouragement of art, music, literature and architecture, a mandate that Montalvo has carried forward ever since its founding. For more information, call (408) 961-5800 or visit www.montalvoarts.org.

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