Fred Hersch is an American jazz pianist and composer. Proclaimed by Vanity Fair magazine, ?the most arrestingly innovative pianist in jazz over the last decade or so," five-time Grammy nominee Hersch balances his internationally recognized instrumental skills with significant achievements as a composer, bandleader, and theatrical conceptualist, as well as remaining an in-demand collaborator with other noted bandleaders and vocalists. As a solo pianist; as leader of a widely praised trio whose album Whirl found its way onto numerous 2010 best-recordings-of-the-year lists; and as the impetus behind the ambitious 2011 production, My Coma Dreams, a full-evening work for 11 instruments, actor/singer and animation/multimedia?Hersch has fully lived up to the approbation of the New York Times who, in a featured Sunday Magazine article, praised him as ?singular among the trailblazers of their art, a largely unsung innovator of this borderless, individualistic jazz ? a jazz for the 21st century.? He was nominated for two 2011 Grammy Awards for Alone at the Vanguard - for Best Jazz Album and Best Improvised Jazz Solo; these are his fourth and fifth nominations. 

October 21st, 1955 in Cincinnati (Age 69)