Donal Fox

DONAL FOX

"Internationally acclaimed pianist, composer and improviser Donal Fox is simply without peer. He is a bravura concert artist whose performance of bracingly original repertoire such as Peace Out for Improvised Piano and Orchestra and The Scarlatti Jazz Suite Project have earned him prestigious honors (a Guggenheim, a Bogliasco Foundation fellowship, and American Academy of Arts and Letters Award), gratifying residences and appointments (with the St. Louis Symphony, at the Library of Congress, at Harvard and most recently as a Martin Luther King Visiting Scholar at MIT), and the awed applause of critic and audiences alike. Audacious and exacting though Fox's music is, he communicates directly and seeks to elevate everyone's musical interactions beyond expectation and conventions. Fox has a singular presence in today's circle of serous cultural activists."
-- Howard Mandel, Senior contributor to Down Beat, arts segment producer on National Public Radio, author of Miles Ornette Cecil – Jazz Beyond Jazz and Future Jazz.

DONAL FOX SHORT BIO:
Donal Fox is internationally acclaimed as composer, pianist, and improviser in both jazz and classical music. His numerous awards include a Guggenheim fellowship in music composition, and a fellowship from the Bogliasco Foundation, and he is a three time nominee for the CalArts/Alpert Award in the Arts. He served as the first African-American composer-in-residence with the St. Louis Symphony and was a visiting artist at Harvard University, where he received a Certificate of Recognition from the President of Harvard College for his contribution to the arts. Mr. Fox recently premiered his Monk and Bach Project at Jazz at Lincoln Center, his orchestra piece, “Hear De Lambs A-Cyrin,” commissioned by the Albany Symphony Orchestra for The Spiritual Project, his Scarlatti Jazz Suite Project at Ozawa Concert Hall in Tanglewood, and the world premiere of his piano concerto Peace Out for Improvised Piano and Orchestra at Carnegie Hall with the American Composers Orchestra. He has been Composer-in-Residence at Oberpfälzer Künstlerhaus (Germany), Tyrone Guthrie Centre (Ireland), Djerassi Resident Artist Program, Liguria Study Center (Italy), Tanglewood Contemporary Music Festival, among others. His innovative "Jazz Duet Series" has included concerts, recordings, and collaborations with Oliver Lake, John Stubblefield, Billy Pierce, David Murray, Elliott Sharp, Regina Carter, George Mraz, Al Foster, Stefon Harris, Andrew Cyrille, Christian Scott, Terri Lyne Carrington, Gary Burton, Lewis Nash, John Patitucci, and poet Quincy Troupe, among others. He has recorded as composer and pianist for New World Records, Evidence Records, Music & Arts, Passin' Thru Records, Yamaha's Original Artist Series, and Wergo Records. His works are published by Margun Music, G. Schirmer, and Leonellis Music. He is a recent recipient of the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Letters Academy Award in Music and is currently a Martin Luther King, Jr. Visiting Scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Mr. Fox's “Hear De Lambs A-Cryin’” will be given its Carnegie Hall premiere by the Albany Symphony Orchestra on May 10, 2011.