Iconic jazz pianist, educator, and HIV/AIDS activist Fred Hersch and his trio are joined by RCM Quartet-in-Residence, Dior Quartet, to perform new works from Hersch’s new album, Breath by Breath. Toronto-based trumpeter Andrew McAnsh performs Music of The Great Lakes: A Songbook for The Canadian Indigenous, a five-part suite.

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. He has been proclaimed “the most arrestingly innovative pianist in jazz over the last decade” by Vanity Fair, “an elegant force of musical invention” by the Los Angeles Times, and “a living legend” by The New Yorker. A 15-time Grammy Award nominee, Hersch has regularly garnered jazz’s most prestigious awards, including distinctions as a 2016 Doris Duke Artist, 2016 and 2018 Jazz Pianist of the Year from the Jazz Journalists Association, and the 2017 Prix Honorem de Jazz from L’Acádemie Charles Cros for the totality of his career. He placed #2 Jazz Musician of the Year in the 2021 DownBeat Critics Poll and was named #3 Jazz Pianist. He was also honoured as the 2021 International Jazz Artist of the Year by Jazz Magazine (France).

Award-winning trumpeter, composer, educator, and recent graduate of the Berklee Global Jazz Institute, Andrew McAnsh was born and raised in Cambridge, Ontario. McAnsh has performed and studied with notable artists including Esperanza Spalding, Barry Harris, Danilo Pérez, John Patitucci, Brian Blade, Laila Biali, Larnell Lewis, Bill Dobbins, Terri Lyne Carrington, George Garzone, Pat LaBarbera, and Hilario Durán.

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