An innovative, unusually expressive pianist and eloquent composer, Fred Hersch has also made a considerable mark as an educator and as jazz's first openly gay, HIV positive artist, unafraid to voice his opinions, campaigning passionately and fund-raising for AIDS charities. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio on October 21, 1955, his dramatic life was portrayed in his 2017 autobiography Good Things Happen Slowly: A Life in and Out of Jazz and the 2016 feature film The Ballad of Fred Hersch. A child prodigy, he was playing piano by the age of four and composing his own tunes by the time he was eight. Two years after that, he started winning piano competitions. His fame spread in 1978 when he played with Art Farmer and went on to accompany singer Chris Connor and work in a duo with bass player Ratso Harris. Praised for the intensity of his playing in various line-ups with numerous musical partners, his reputation as one of the greatest jazz musicians of his generation was further enhanced by the remarkable ambition and fearlessness of his original compositions. Notable works included the chamber piece Leaves of Grass (2005) featuring vocalists Kurt Elling and Kate McGarry performing with an instrumental octet. Fred Hersch has also received great acclaim for the albums Alive at The Vanguard (2012), Free Flying with Julian Lage (2013), Floating (2014), and Sunday Night at The Vanguard (2016). His hedonistic lifestyle resulted in severe medical problems and in 2007, he was in a medically induced coma for two months. When he recovered from his coma, he was unable to play piano, although intensive physical training , an experience which produced one of his most groundbreaking creations, the theatrical jazz hybrid My Coma Dreams (2014). The album was adapted in a stage show which tackled the difference between reality and dreams. He has also taught at the New England Conservatory, the Juilliard School and the Manhattan School of Music and has become a major influence on a new generation of jazz musicians. Later Fred Hersch recordings include Begin Again with the WDR Big Band Köln (2019), Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition / Tchaikovsky Variations (2019), Song from Home (2020), and Alive at the Village Vanguard with Esperanza Spalding (2023). In 2022, the pianist collaborated with The Crosby Street String Quartet for Breath by Breath, followed by The Song Is You with Enrico Rava, the solo Silent, Listening (2024), Suspended in Time with vocalist Rondi Charleston, and The Surrounding Green with Drew Gress and Joey Baron (2025). Fred Hersch has won many awards over the course of his career including a Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship in Composition (2003), a Coup de Coeur for the album Alone at the Vanguard (2012), three Pianist of the Year awards from the Jazz Journalists Association (2011, 2016, and 2018), a Pianist of the Year award from DownBeat Magazine (2015), a Grand Prix du Disque from the Académie du Jazz (2015), and many others. He has received nine Grammy Awards nominations over the years.
