Frederic Chiu
Carnegie Mellon University and The Hartt School in Hartford, CT
Frederic Chiu performs in major venues on five continents, such as The Lincoln Center in New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington, The Chatelet in Paris and the Mozarteum in Buenos Aires. He also holds extensive tours in smaller and unusual venues. Frederic Chiu has been known to collaborate with Classical music friends Joshua Bell, Pierre Amoyal, Gary Hoffman and the St Lawrence String Quartet, as well as non-Classical friends like jazz pianist Bob James, writer and storyteller David Gonzalez, Shakespearean actor Brian Bedford and the clown Buffo, trying to bring the vivid live concert experience to as many people as possible. He has worked with conductors such as Christoph Campestrini, John Nelson, Stefan Sanderling, Rodolfo Fischer, Susan Haig, Bernhard Klee, Xian Zhang and Alexander Titov.
Among his recital programs, Frederic Chiu presents "Classical Smackdown," an on-going series where composers face off in head-to-head comparisons, with listeners voting for their favorite composer. After his first successful Smackdown between Debussy and Prokofiev, he presented Bach vs. Philip Glass, with results tracked at classicalsmackdown.com/. The latest installment of this series features the title of "Mendelssohn and Chopin before aged 20" which was done to highlight the contrasts and the similarities of the composers’ works, and provide examples of the greatest achievement of both composers.
Frederic Chiu has released over 30 recordings, including the most extensive complete piano works of Prokofiev, works of Chopin, Liszt, Ravel, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Schubert, Rossini and Grieg, as well as the Beethoven/Liszt Symphony V and VII, and the solo piano version of Carnival of the Animals. His recent projects include "Hymns and Dervishes," music of Gurdjieff/de Hartmann, "Distant Voices: Piano music of Claude Debussy and Gao Ping" and Schubert Fantasy for Violin and Piano with William Harvey. He is a regular on St. Paul Sunday and Performance Today, and a favorite of public radios across the country.
Chiu's teaching programme Deeper Piano Studies – a philosophic and holistic approach to piano playing – has been featured at the Juilliard School, Indiana University’s Jacob School of Music, the Manhattan School of Music, the New England Conservatory, the Banff Centre and most of the National Conservatories in China. He currently teaches at both Carnegie Mellon University and The Hartt School in Hartford, Connecticut.
With his wife, Jeanine Esposito, Chiu is the co-founder and artistic director of Beechwood Arts and Innovation in Connecticut, focused on the crossroads between art, innovation and transformation. His efforts to promote music coincide with his desire to foster peace and understanding, recently recognised by a Senatorial Commendation from the United States Congress. He has been, for more than 35 years, a Yamaha artist and has explored the integration of their instruments ranging from the highest-quality acoustic to the purely digital and all the different hybrid combinations in between.
Ted Rosenthal
The Juilliard School and Manhattan School of Music
Ted Rosenthal is one of the leading jazz pianist and composers of his generation. He actively tours worldwide with his trio, as a soloist and has performed with many jazz greats, including Gerry Mulligan, Art Farmer, Phil Woods, Bob Brookmeyer and James Moody.
Winner of the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Piano Competition, Rosenthal has released nineteen CDs as a leader, including a series of four new CDs in 2025, featuring his distinctive arrangements of the Great American Songbook, reimaginings of classical themes and original compositions. His Rhapsody in Gershwin, which features his arrangement of Rhapsody in Blue for jazz trio, reached #1 in jazz album sales at iTunes and Amazon. Wonderland, was selected as a New York Times holiday pick and received much critical praise. Impromptu, showcases his reimaginings of classical themes for jazz trio. The 3 B's where Ted Rosenthal masterfully plays the works of Bud Powell, Bill Evans and Beethoven received four stars from DownBeat magazine. David R. Adler from the All Music Guide quotes that "In Rosenthal's hands all this music sounds as though it sprang from the same muse, and that's the sign of a skilled, imaginative artist".
A recipient of three grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Rosenthal regularly performs and records his compositions, which include jazz tunes and large-scale works. Rosenthal’s jazz opera, "Dear Erich," was commissioned and premiered by New York City Opera in 2019. "Dear Erich" attracted much press and critical acclaim from reviewers in the New York Times and Opera Wire. Since the premiere, Rosenthal has presented more than a dozen concert performances of "Dear Erich," both in the United States and Europe.
Rosenthal has also been commissioned by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, The Park Avenue Chamber Symphony and Dallas Black Dance Theatre. "The Survivor," his concerto for piano and orchestra, has been performed by the Manhattan Jazz Philharmonic and the Rockland Symphony Orchestra, with Rosenthal at the piano. Rosenthal premiered his second jazz piano concerto, "Jazz Fantasy," with The Park Avenue Chamber Symphony.
Rosenthal was artistic director of Jazz at the Riverdale Y and Jazz at Dicapo Theatre, both in New York City. He has also performed with Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, and Jon Faddis and the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band. In addition, Rosenthal has been the pianist of choice for many top jazz vocalists including Helen Merrill, Ann Hampton Callaway, Kurt Elling and Barbara Cook. He appeared on Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz on National Public Radio and performed with David Sanborn on NBC's Night Music.
Rosenthal’s orchestral performances include solo and featured appearances with The Detroit Symphony, The Phoenix Symphony The Boston Pops, The Grand Rapids Symphony, The Rochester Philharmonic, The Pittsburgh Symphony and The Fort Worth Symphony. In 2014 Rosenthal performed Rhapsody in Blue at Town Hall in a concert celebrating the 90th anniversary of its premiere and gave many performances of Rhapsody in 2024 celebrating the 100th anniversary.
Rosenthal received his Bachelors and Masters degrees from the Manhattan School of Music. Active in jazz education, he is in the faculty of The Juilliard School and Manhattan School of Music, where he also served on their Board of Trustees and received the Presidential Medal for Distinguished Faculty Service. Rosenthal has taught and mentored many of the leading jazz pianists of the younger generation. He presents jazz clinics throughout the world, often in conjunction with his touring. He was a contributing editor for Piano and Keyboard magazine and has published piano arrangements and feature articles for Piano Today, The Piano Stylist and The Juilliard Journal. His website is www.tedrosenthal.com