You’ve got great taste.
Sign in to follow your favorite artists, save events, & more.
Sign In
Fred Hersch
Fred Hersch - Breath By Breath
Princeton University
68 Nassau St
Princeton, NJ 08544
Feb 9, 2023
7:30 PM EST
I Was There
Leave a Review
About this concert
“A living legend” (The New Yorker) within jazz’s piano pantheon, fifteen-time GRAMMY nominee Fred Hersch was also one of the first openly gay, HIV-positive jazz musicians. Amidst the demands of an internationally celebrated career, he spent several months in an AIDS-related coma in 2008. And yet, as he shared in an interview on NPR’s “Fresh Air:”
“Certainly since the coma … there seems to be more relaxation, maybe more depth, more direct connection to what I’m playing. I realized when I was that far down that I really wasn’t done yet. There was more that I had to do as a musician, as a partner.”
He makes his Princeton University Concerts debut, as part of our new Healing with Music series, to discuss this profound relationship to music and share “Breath by Breath”—a suite of nine original compositions written during the pandemic, inspired by his longtime practice of mindfulness meditation. Through this combination of performance and conversation with series host Clemency Burton-Hill, we will come together to breathe in the life-affirming power of music, guided by an endlessly-inspiring musician who is a living testament to music’s ability to heal.
Show More
Find a place to stay
Fred Hersch merch
Suspended In Time
$10.98
View All
What fans are saying
Easily follow your favorite artists by syncing your music
Sync Music
Share Event
Fred Hersch Biography
Fred Hersch (born October 21, 1955 in Cincinnati, Ohio) is a contemporary American jazz pianist who has become a consistent and highly demanded performer on the international jazz scene.
Hersch began playing piano at a very young age and graduated from the prestigious New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. His teachers included Sophia Rosoff. He moved to New York City in the late 1970s where he soon found a place playing with notable artists such as Stan Getz, Joe Henderson, Lee Konitz, and Charlie Haden.
Hersch soon began cutting his own records and became a noted composer. Like a number of jazz pianists who have come of age over the past 20 years, he is strongly influenced by the work of Bill Evans, though Hersch has also been at pains to distance himself from Evans' influence. Although Hersch has played in a number of different instrumental arrangements, he is an exceptional solo performer, and many of his albums are solo recitals.
Read MoreHersch began playing piano at a very young age and graduated from the prestigious New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. His teachers included Sophia Rosoff. He moved to New York City in the late 1970s where he soon found a place playing with notable artists such as Stan Getz, Joe Henderson, Lee Konitz, and Charlie Haden.
Hersch soon began cutting his own records and became a noted composer. Like a number of jazz pianists who have come of age over the past 20 years, he is strongly influenced by the work of Bill Evans, though Hersch has also been at pains to distance himself from Evans' influence. Although Hersch has played in a number of different instrumental arrangements, he is an exceptional solo performer, and many of his albums are solo recitals.
Jazz
Follow artist