Bill Cunliffe with Jeremy Cohen
Sunday, March 9, 2025
5:00 PM
LIVE at Piedmont Piano Company
JAZZ PIANO MASTERS SERIES
Bill Cunliffe
with Jeremy Cohen and Quartet San Francisco
This concert is a world premiere of a number of works written by Bill Cunliffe for violinist Jeremy Cohen and the Quartet San Francisco. Bill has had a long relationship with Jeremy, having performed with him a number of times at the Henry Mancini Institute in Los Angeles in the ’90’s and ’00’s. These new pieces are for string quartet and piano, and all feature jazz improvisation, both by Bill and members of the quartet. Works performed include pieces composed by Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter, two of Bill’s main musical influences.
BUY TICKETS
General Admission
$30 advanced / $35 at the door
We are offering a limited number of seats for this performance. Advanced purchase is recommended. Masking is no longer required.
BILL CUNLIFFE
Bill Cunliffe is a jazz pianist, composer, and Grammy Award-winning arranger. He got his start playing and arranging for the great Buddy Rich, and was the 1989 winner of the Thelonious Monk International Piano Competition. Upon moving to Los Angeles, he performed with the Clayton Brothers and the Clayton Hamilton Jazz Orchestra for ten years, and currently plays with the Joe La Barbera quintet (former drummer with Bill Evans). Cunliffe’s film work includes the score for “On the Shoulders of Giants,” Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s homage to the Harlem Rens basketball team of the 1920s and ’30s.
Cunliffe was awarded a Grammy for Best Instrumental Arrangement for “West Side Story Medley,” on the album “Resonance Big Band Plays Tribute to Oscar Peterson” (Resonance Records, 2009). His piano concerto, Overture, Waltz and Rondo, was nominated for a Grammy in 2012.
His latest releases are Cabin In The Sky”(2018), a duo project with the acclaimed harmonica artist Hendrik Meurkens, and two trio recordings, Sunset in Molokai (2019) and Border Widows Lament (2022) with NY-based bassist Martin Wind and drummer Tim Horner.
His music has been performed by the Flensburg (Germany) Symphony, the Marchigiana Philharmonic Orchestra,
the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, the Middletown (OH) Symphony, the Temple University Symphony and the the Reading (PA) Symphony, among others.
In addition to his work as jazz studies professor at Cal State Fullerton, Cunliffe teaches at the Skidmore Jazz Institute and the Vail Jazz Workshop. Bill’s music can be found at billcunliffe.com and billcunliffe1.bandcamp.com
JEREMY COHEN
Jeremy Cohen‘s electrifying jazz violin performances have earned him nationwide accolades. Classically-trained and a student of Itzhak Perlman and Anne Crowden, Cohen’s eclectic style reflects his respect for a wide range of violinists from Perlman and Fritz Kreisler to Joe Venuti and Eddie South.
Cohen has performed as soloist with numerous orchestras including the Virginia Symphony, the California Symphony and the Reno Philharmonic. His recording credits include motion picture and television soundtracks including “The Dukes of Hazzard” and Jane Fonda’s “Dollmaker,” and as concertmaster on recordings with Linda Ronstadt, Ray Charles, Aaron Neville, Howard Keel and Cleo Laine. He appeared on Carlos Santana’s Grammy-winning CD “Supernatural” and the original “Star Wars” compilation CD with John Williams. On the stage he was the solo violinist in “Forever Tango” and “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” and has toured and recorded with the 2006 Grammy winners, the Turtle Island String Quartet. jeremycohen.com
QUARTET SAN FRANCISCO
Jeremy Cohen founded the pioneering string group, Quartet San Francisco, and has toured extensively with the group throughout the United States, China, Japan, Italy, Germany, and South Korea since 2001. Quartet San Francisco was awarded the Grand Prize in the First International Tango Competition at the Argentine Consulate in New York in 2004. QSF’s CDs have garnered seven Grammy nominations since 2006 in the categories of Best Classical Crossover, Best Engineered Classical, and Best Instrumental Composition. Cohen composes and arranges for the group and is in demand as a composer/arranger for other ensembles as well, including the Marin Symphony, the Sun Valley Music Festival Bronfman Chamber Music Series, San Jose Chamber Orchestra, San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, the San Francisco Bay Area’s Peninsula Symphony, the Reading Philharmonic, the Reno Philharmonic, the Del Sol String Quartet, the Bridge Virtuosi, and the San Francisco Symphony.
