Contemporary Pianists

UK singing and songwriting sensation James Blunt has come a long way from his unlikely stint serving four years in the British Army to having 2005's top selling album of the year in the UK with Back to Bedlam. In the four years since Blunt released Back to Bedlam, he’s sold 11 million records worldwide, with the album going No. 1 in 18 countries and making the top 10 in 35. This platinum selling, award-winning artist uses the Yamaha MP100.

First came The Beatles, and then, Wings. Today, it's just Paul McCartney solo. Paul has been tied to countless major musicians throughout his career as a songwriter and collaborator - from producing Cliff Bennett, Paddy, Klaus And Gibson and the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, to appearances on sessions by Donovan, Paul Jones and Steve Miller. While Paul McCartney is regarded as one of the foremost musicians in the world, his live shows tend to garner more visibility and regard than may be demonstrated on the music charts. Paul plays Yamaha grand pianos on stage and in the studio.

There's only one thing tougher than making your debut album, and that's recording your first demo.
"Making mine was a total nightmare", laughs Vanessa Carlton one of Rolling Stone's "Top 10 Artists to Watch in 2002." "I was 17 and living in Hell's Kitchen, working five days a week as a waitress in lower Manhattan. On the weekends, I'd grab my four-track and make the long drive to my parents' house in Pennsylvania because that's where the piano was."

When Chantal Kreviazuk took to the concert grand piano placed in the kitchen of her home studio to commence the writing of her fourth album, something began to change. The chords she started to release were immediately different from her earlier work – revealing themselves to be much more rhythmic and charging. While other artists tend to mellow as their career progresses, Chantal found that she was crafting her most driving work with Ghost Stories.

Sara Bareilles is a mesmerizing singer-songwriter who grew up performing in her native Humboldt County, California with no formal training in either voice or piano. Much of her adolescence was spent perched in front of a worn piano learning chords and scribbling simple melodies and lyrics. In 2003, Bareilles co-produced her first independent studio demo, Careful Confessions, and she earned a loyal grassroots following through touring.

Jim Brickman, whose distinctive piano personifies pure romance, celebrates his tenth anniversary as one of Windham Hill's best selling recording artists.
Since bursting onto the music scene – from commercial jingles to the recording industry, the competitive arena of radio airplay to the concert stage, Jim has appeared to be an overnight success. He was a smash in every musical endeavor he attempted. With ten albums to his name since his solo recording debut No Words in 1994, Jim Brickman's recording career has been filled with awards and success.

To say that everything David Foster touches turns to gold AND usually platinum would be an understatement. The stunningly talented producer and songwriter is a 14-time Grammy Award winner with an unprecedented 43 nominations, a recipient of 7 Juno Awards, an Emmy Award in 2004 and a three time Oscar nominee during the course of a magnificent career which spans over three extraordinarily successful decades. He has worked with the biggest and best talents in the music industry including Barbra Streisand, Josh Groban, Celine Dion, Whitney Houston, Madonna, N'Sync, The Corrs, Natalie Cole…. and he's just getting started!

Four decades, 200 million record sales, 50 Top 40 hits, 5 GRAMMYS, and a raft of other awards later, Elton John is still the musician that all musicians are measured by. His success has had a profound impact on popular music and has contributed to the continued popularity of the piano in rock and roll. Knighted Sir Elton John in 1998, he's worked with some of the biggest names in the industry.

Since 1994 Sheryl Crow has dazzled the world with songs that appeal to all ages, blending rock, country and pop into one mainstream sound. Her debut studio album Tuesday Night Music Club went seven times platinum, hit #3 and earned three Grammys: Best New Artist, Record of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for the classic "All I Wanna Do." Since then, she’s earned a total of nine of the coveted GRAMMY Awards and released five platinum selling albums. Sheryl uses a DGT7 and a C5 Concert Grand Piano for writing, recording and performing.

Sarah McLachlan took the word by storm in the ‘90s. She brought us Lilith Fair (raising $7 million dollars over a three-year period), won three GRAMMYs (Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in 1998 and 1999 and Best Pop Instrumental in 1998), and sold 22 million records worldwide. On Oct. 7, 2008, she celebrated the 20th anniversary of her multi-platinum record¬ing career with the release of Closer: The Best Of Sarah McLachlan.

There are certain singers whom we feel that we know, from the very first time we hear them. As the intimacy of their delivery and the subtle shading of their interpretation draw us in, a whole personality seems to take shape in our imagination. Norah Jones is that kind of singer. Her Blue Note debut album, Come Away With Me, offers a musicality and depth of feeling that would be uncommon in any era. In the present day, in a performer just 22 years of age, these qualities are truly remarkable...

The extraordinary, multi-platinum, 11-time Grammy Award winning Alicia Keys is a rare artist among her own generation – a singer, songwriter and extraordinary pianist who combines classical training with an old school sensibility and a direct relationship with todays mix of hip-hop and R&B. Since the 2001 debut of Songs In A Minor, the New York native has built an unparalleled repertoire of hits and accomplishments and clearly established herself as one of the best-selling artists of the decade. Alicia prefers the Yamaha silent pianos, such as the C6S and C7S, to create her musical masterpieces that have earned her devoted fans all around the world.

With his platinum CD Get Lifted, newcomer John Legend proved quickly he is indeed the stuff legends are made of. This multi-talented singer, songwriter, musician, arranger and producer has worked with some of the hottest names in the music industry including Kanye West, Jay-Z, Alicia Keys, Janet Jackson, Lauren Hill, and the Black Eyed Peas. His follow up albums Once Again and Evolver and both spawned GRAMMY-nominated singles and have solidified his spot as a major R&B solo artist.

With his flawless lyrical baritone, Josh Groban is known around the world as a classically influenced pop singer. Over the past five years, the Los Angeles native has become an international superstar, selling more than 23 million albums and filling every arena on his 81-city Awake World Tour, which visited North America, Europe, Australia, and the Philippines between February and October in 2007.

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Jazz Pianists

Tony Bennett is the kind of artist that moves the hearts and souls of audiences. He's the singer's singer and has received high praise from his colleagues through the years, including Frank Sinatra who stated unequivocally, "Tony Bennett is the best singer in the business." He is an international treasure who was honored by the United Nations with their "Citizen of the World" honor, which aptly describes the scope of his accomplishments.

One of the most creatively restless and indefatigably imaginative artists in jazz, Chick Corea defies categorization. He is equally at home in acoustic settings as in electric formats. He performs sublime solo concerts and welcomes richly arranged collaborations with orchestras.

Tom Grant, master instrumentalist, talented singer and natural entertainer, nimbly walks the line between jazz tradition and modern pop. This soft-spoken Oregon native's inspired songwriting produces propulsive R&B grooves, infectious melodic hooks, and stylish ballads with equal ease. He plays jazz piano with the harmonic sophistication and deep sense of swing that only comes from more than three decades on the bandstand. At the same time, his recordings have consistently landed at the top of the Smooth Jazz charts, a genre of music Tom helped pioneer in the mid-80s.

Since the release of Another Mind, Hiromi Uehara's 2003 debut on Telarc, a division of Concord Music Group, the Japanese composer/pianist has electrified audiences and critics on both hemispheres with a creative energy that defies the conventional parameters of jazz and pushes musicianship and composition to unprecedented levels of complexity and sophistication.

Mike's solid reputation for creativity and quality has motivated many other well-known rock musicians to invite him to record on their albums. Trent Reznor - who first met Mike during David Bowie's 1996 "Outside" tour - featured Mike on several tracks of Nine Inch Nails' "The Fragile." Mike can also be heard on Seal's "Human Being" as well as a special bonus track at the end of No Doubt's "Return of Saturn" album.

Discovered by Quincy Jones at the Notre Dame Jazz Festival in 1963, Bob recorded his first solo album, Bold Conceptions, that year for Mercury Records. 36 more solo albums would follow through four decades; that number is just to date and does not include his GRAMMY Award-winning collaboration projects. Although he was to record another trio album, Explosions, for ESP (1964), it was not until Bob met up with Creed Taylor in New York that his composing, arranging and recording career really took off. After working on albums for CTI artists like Hank Crawford, Grover Washington, Jr. and many others, Bob finally recorded his own album, One. This introduced his music to a bigger audience and launched a lifelong career of recording and performing live...

Jamie Cullum is an artist deserving of superlatives but more complex than a simple set of adjectives can depict. If you know him as "just" a jazz musician or from his strikingly creative way with cover versions (among them, Radiohead's “High & Dry” and Pharrell's “Frontin”) you are just familiar with the tip of the iceberg. The Pursuit, his fifth album and first new solo record in four years, is summed up by its title, taken from Nancy Mitford's classic novel, The Pursuit Of Love. "

On 2011’s KAESHAMMER, Michael Kaeshammer doesn’t simply wow you with his chops; he invites you in and talks to you. Yes, he’s a gifted singer and songwriter, a highly trained technician and interpreter and an incendiary piano player. But also, on stage and off, he’s a consummate host.

Kenny Werner is a world-class pianist and composer. His prolific output of compositions, recordings and publications continue to impact audiences around the world.
Kenny was recently awarded the 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship Award for his seminal work, No Beginning No End. No Beginning No End is a musical journey exploring tragedy and loss, death and transition, and the path from one lifetime to the next. Utilizing over 70 musicians, Kenny's third album for Half Note Records is an expansive composition featuring Joe Lovano, Judy Silvano, Wind Ensemble, Choir and String Quartet.

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Classical Pianists

Six decades into one of songwriting's most successful and honored careers – marked by 48 Top 10 hits, nine #1 songs and more than 500 compositions and a landmark 47-year run on the charts, Burt Bacharach's music continues to set industry records and creative standards. His audience spans several generations, and he is viewed as the unique combination of one of the greatest composers of all time and the "ultra-cool cult hero" of the contemporary music set who often has several songs on various music charts simultaneously.

Constantly innovating in his audience-building approach to programming, this season Frederic Chiu is presenting "Classical Smackdown", a multi-year series where composers face off in head-to-head comparisons, with the audience voting for their preferred composer. The Smackdown this season is between Debussy and Prokofiev. Results are being tracked at ClassicalSmackdown.com.

Named among 10 tomorrow's great pianists by the BBC Music Magazine, Eduard Kunz has performed and broadcast frequently with almost every major orchestra in the UK including BBC Symphony Orchestra and BBC Concert Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Royal Scottish National Orchestra, The Hallé and The Ulster Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Welsh National Opera Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and London Musici orchestras with conductors such as Tugan Sokhiev, Christian Mandeal, Edward Gardner, Gerard Schwarz, Lothar Koenigs, Garry Walker, Clark Rundell, Mark Stephenson, Alejandro Posada, Josep Caballe Domenech, Alexander Joel, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Barry Wordsworth and David Angus amongst others.

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