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Jazz pianist Fred Hersch performs Wednesday

March 11, 2006

KALAMAZOO--Jazz pianist Fred Hersch appears in a solo concert Wednesday, March 15, at 8:15 p.m. in the Dalton Center Recital Hall at Western Michigan University.

General admission tickets are $15 and are available at the door or in advance through the Miller Auditorium Ticket Office at (269) 387-2300 or (800) 228-9858. Admission is $5 for students and senior citizens.

The concert is sponsored by the Jazz Studies program in the WMU School of Music and is part of a tour Hersch is doing to celebrate the release of his newest CD, "Fred Hersch in Amsterdam: Live at the Bimhuis," distributed by Palmetto Records.

Hersch, a regular visiting artist at WMU, is performing in New York, Boston, Baltimore and four other cities in Michigan and Pennsylvania before departing for Europe in May.

Hersch is widely recognized for his ability to reinvent the standard jazz repertoire--investing time-tested classics with keen insight, fresh ideas and extraordinary technique, while steadfastly creating his own unique body of works.

Described by The New Yorker as "a poet of a pianist" and The New York Times as "a master who plays it his way," Hersch's accomplishments include a 2003 Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship for composition, a Rockefeller Fellowship for a composition residency at the Bellagio Center in Italy and two Grammy nominations for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance. He has recorded more than 20 albums as a solo artist or bandleader, co-led another 20 projects and appeared as a sideman or featured soloist on some 80 further recordings.

Media contact: Kevin West, (269) 387-4678, kevin.west@wmich.edu

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