MASTER CLASS:
Fred Hersch

Thursday, February 26, 2026
Shepard Hall 95 – The Recital Hall
12:00–2:00 PM
Free Admission

A select member of jazz’s piano pantheon, Fred Hersch is a pervasively influential creative force who has shaped the music’s course over more than three decades as an improviser, composer, educator, bandleader, collaborator, and recording artist. With some fifty albums to his credit as a leader or co-leader, he’s a 17-time Grammy Award nominee who continues to earn jazz’s most prestigious awards, including distinctions as a 2016 Doris Duke Artist and being named Jazz Pianist of the Year three times from the Jazz Journalists Association. Proclaimed “a living legend” by The New Yorker, Hersch has long defined jazz’s creative edge in a wide variety of settings, from his breathtaking solo recitals and exploratory duos to his extraordinary trios and innovative chamber settings. As a composer, he is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship — and his recent releases Live in Europe with his celebrated trio and the 2024 solo disc Silent, Listening (ECM) are definitive statements. His acclaimed memoir Good Things Happen Slowly is now available from Crown Archetype Books.

Fred is a long-time friend of City College. He was the special guest at the 2023 CUNY Jazz Festival and has been giving master classes at CCNY since 1999. The Fred Hersch Master Class is one of the defining moments of the semester for the Jazz Studies majors and the campus community.

CCNY JAZZ
Division of Humanities and the Arts
The City College of New York