Happy Present Meet
Hersch Valentine for Piano Solo
A pianist and composer whose work has received nearly universal acclaim in a career spanning over 25
years, Fred Hersch is among the foremost creative musicians in the world today. Described as a master who
plays it his way` by The New York Times, Hersch has released more than twenty albums as a solo artist or
bandleader, two of which were nominated for Grammy awards for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance. He
was the recipient of a 2003 Guggenheim Fellowship in composition and has received grants from both The
National Endowment for the Arts and Meet the Composer as well as commissions from The Doris Duke
Foundation and the Irwin S. Gilmore Foundation, among many others. He has also been awarded five
composition residencies at The MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, NH, and a Rockefeller Fellowship for a
residency at the Bellagio Center and Foundation in Lake Como, Italy. He has collaborated with an
extraordinary range of major artists in both the jazz and classical worlds, including Joe Henderson, Stan Getz,
Charlie Haden, Gary Burton, Dawn Upshaw, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Jeffrey Kahane, Christopher O`Riley,
Renee Fleming, and dozens of others. For more information, please visit www.fredhersch.com.
for solo piano - `Valentine` was composed on Valentine`s Day in 2001 at The MacDowell Colony in
Peterborough, NH. At the time, I was writing jazz tunes with the aid of a kitchen timer, and this was completed
in sketch form in about 20 minutes. I then fashioned a lead sheet and began playing the piece in concerts,
usually as an encore. It received a Grammy nomination for Best Instrumental Composition in 2008. As I
performed the piece, my interpretations became more consistent - even though there is a free improvisatory
introduction and improvisation after the melody and before the recapitulation (both of them written out here in
abbreviated form). I have had many requests from non-improvising pianists for a piano arrangement, so I
created this arrangement in 2010.` - Fred Hersch.
작곡가 Hersch, Fred