141. Steve Ross & Jed Distler, pianos (and friends)

Sunday, December 8th, 2024 @2pm | A Piano Birthday Party with Steve Ross, Jed Distler and Friends

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at
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141.

Salon Concerts at Klavierhaus
Jed Distler, artistic director

presents

A Piano Birthday Party with Steve Ross, Jed Distler and Friends

Steve Ross & Jed Distler, pianos

Sunday, December 8th, 2024 @2pm

Live at Klavierhaus
790 11th Avenue
New York, NY 10019

$20 suggested donation

Donate to Salon Concerts   In-person reservation   Livestream

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Cabaret pianist/singer legend Steve Ross and Salon Concerts' Artistic Director Jed Distler celebrate their joint December 8th birthdays for an informal afternoon of spontaneous multi-pianist collaborations ranging from favorite classics to the great American Songbook, and many other musical surprises. Scheduled pianists include Kathleen Landis, Bruce Barnes, Daniel Sefik, Michael Lavine, Dennis Buck, Victoria Wong, Steve Sandberg, David Pearl and Rubi Miyachi.

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For nearly half a century, Steve Ross has been acclaimed as a living legend and a major icon in the New York cabaret community. In 1981 he re-opened the legendary Oak Room at Manhattan’s Hotel Algonguin, where he held forth for more than 15 years. He has appeared on Broadway in Noël Coward’s Present Laughter and Off-Broadway in his Fred Astaire tribute entitled I Won’t Dance. Internationally, he has performed in nearly every major city on six continents, and hosted programs on the BBC and New York Public Radio. For eight years he was on the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Concerts and Lectures roster. The New York Times’ Stephen Holden described Ross as “the personification of the bygone dream world that his music summons.” His numerous recordings devoted to a wide range of the great Transatlantic Songbook can be found on all major physical CD, digital download and streaming platforms.

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Called “an altogether extraordinary pianist” by Michael Redmond in the Newark Star Ledger, “the Downtown Keyboard Magus” in the New Yorker, and “a witty, genial and adventurous pianist and composer” in the New York Times, Jed Distler has premiered works by Frederic Rzewski, Lois V Vierk, Wendy Mae Chambers, Simeon ten Holt, Richard Rodney Bennett, Alvin Curran, William Schimmel, Virgil Thomson, Andrew Thomas and Virko Baley, among many others. Jed’s principal classical piano teachers were Stanley Lock and William Komaiko, although he considers Dick Hyman, Hank Jones and Bill Evans important mentors in his early years when he played jazz for a living. As a recitalist, Jed has given new music programs across the United States and Europe from Italian festivals in Ravello, Sorrento and Erculano to New York’s Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall. The list of musicians, spoken word performers, visual artists and choreographers with whom Jed has collaborated is a veritable Who’s Who of the New York arts scene in late 20th-century New York. In the 1980s Jed worked closely with dance legend Jacques D’Amboise and played Beethoven with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and has performed with singers as diverse as Phyllis Bryn-Julson and KT Sullivan.

In 2012 Jed launched a solo piano project encompassing jazz icon Thelonious Monk’s complete songs in a single concert, and has performed it in New York, Las Vegas, Berkeley, Italy and Germany. Jed’s unique Monk interpretations can be found on a 2019 release from TNC Jazz called Fearless Monk.

Jed’s CD, Meditate with the Masters, released by Musical Concepts in 2011, contains soothing, relaxing original piano pieces based on familiar classical themes. Canadian journalist Cendrine Marrouat wrote “Distler plays with such grace and lightness that the beautiful emotions he delivers speak directly to the senses, and ultimately to our inner child.” As a Steinway Artist, Jed has recorded prolifically for Steinway Spirio, a high-resolution player piano system. The Steinway & Sons label has issue Jed’s Spirio performances on Cole Porter On a Steinway Volume 1 and Quiet Now – Steinway Ballads. Read John Marks’ review of the latter here.

The return to concert life after the pandemic has kept Jed busy with unusual projects. He recently embarked on a multi-year journey encompassing performances in the US and Europe with a wide range of pianists in Mahler’s complete symphonies arranged for one piano four hands, plus selected symphonies of Bruckner and Shostakovich.