Magical Duets: Steinway Artist Donal Fox and the Steinway Spirio Player Piano

“Fox has come to own the musical crossroads where classical intersects jazz. This evening should be a prime example of his cross-genre invention, but it also will be unlike anything you’ve heard previously in a live context. It offers a literal meeting of musical minds as Fox uses a Steinway player piano to resurrect J. S. Bach, Domenico Scarlatti, Johannes Brahms, Federico Mompou, and Frederic Chopin on the classical side, along with Thelonious Monk from the jazz world, and intertwine his improvisations and compositions on a second piano with their music. He’s already recorded some of his work along these lines, but this will be the first live outing for the concept. He’ll play solo, too.” — Steve Elman, Arts Fuse

Steinway Artist Donal Fox has been featured in the Steinway Spirio Spotlight, along with the immortal Duke Ellington, Chucho Valdés, Bill Charlap, Ramsey Lewis, Art Tatum, Yuja Wang, Lang, Lang, and many more

“Steinway Spirio features the wonderfully inventive composer and pianist Donal Fox. An eloquent improviser, Donal’s music blends classical and jazz in the most persuasive way. His original style bridges a wide range — from Scarlatti to Thelonious Monk to Einaudi — and is always engaging.”
– Steinway & Sons, NY

Donal Fox is internationally acclaimed as composer, pianist, and improviser in both jazz and classical music. His numerous awards include a Guggenheim fellowship in music composition, and a fellowship from the Bogliasco Foundation. He served as the first African- American composer-in-residence with the St. Louis Symphony and was a visiting artist at Harvard University, where he received a Certificate of Recognition from the President of Harvard College for his contribution to the arts. Mr. Fox recently premiered his Monk and Bach Project at Jazz at Lincoln Center, his Scarlatti Jazz Suite Project at Tanglewood, and the world premiere of his piano concerto Peace Out for Improvised Piano and Orchestra at Carnegie Hall with the American Composers Orchestra. He has been Composer-in-Residence at Oberpfälzer Künstlerhaus (Germany), Tyrone Guthrie Centre (Ireland), Djerassi Resident Artist Program, Liguria Study Center (Italy), Tanglewood Contemporary Music Festival, among others. Donal Fox has performed and recorded with many artists including Oliver Lake, John Stubblefield, David Murray, Elliott Sharp, Regina Carter, George Mraz, Al Foster, Stefon Harris, Dafnis Prieto, Christian Scott, Terri Lyne Carrington, Maya Beiser, Hilary Hahn, and poet Quincy Troupe, among others. He has recorded as composer and pianist for New World Records, Evidence Records, Music & Arts, Passin’ Thru Records, Yamaha’s Original Artist Series, Steinway Spirio, and Wergo Records. His works are published by Margun Music, G. Schirmer, and Leonellis Music. He is a recipient of the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Letters Academy Award in Music and a Martin Luther King, Jr. Visiting Scholar Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Mr. Fox was recently featured on the Emancipation 150 Series, presented by WQXR, part of The NEXT New York Conversation and the Coca-Cola Generations in Jazz Festival at Jazz at Lincoln Center.

Says Howard Mandel (Senior contributor to Down Beat, arts segment producer on National Public Radio, author of Miles Ornette Cecil – Jazz Beyond Jazz and Future Jazz): “Internationally acclaimed pianist, composer and improviser Donal Fox is simply without peer. He is a bravura concert artist whose performance of bracingly original repertoire such as Peace Out for Improvised Piano and Orchestra and The Scarlatti Jazz Suite Project have earned him prestigious honors…gratifying residencies and appointments… and the awed applause of critic and audiences alike. Audacious and exacting though Fox’s music is, he communicates directly and seeks to elevate everyone’s musical interactions beyond expectation and conventions. Fox has a singular presence in today’s circle of serous cultural activists.”