Paul Kerekes

Instruments

Piano

Area of Study

Accompanist , Musicianship , Private Lessons

Career Highlights

D.M.A. Composition Yale School of Music
M.M.A. Composition Yale School of Music
M.M. Composition Yale School of Music
B.M. Piano Performance CUNY Queens College

The music of New York-based composer-pianist Paul Kerekes is often inspired by visual ideas and formed with an improvisatory spirit aiming to recreate tactile pictures of the concepts or experiences on which they are based. His works have been described as “gently poetic” (The New York Times), “striking” (WQXR), “highly eloquent” (New Haven Advocate) and he has had the privilege of hearing his pieces performed by many outstanding ensembles, some of which include the American Composers Orchestra, the Mendelssohn-Orchesterakademie, Da Capo Chamber Players, Music from Copland House, New Morse Code, Real Loud, andPlay, Exceptet, and Thin Edge New Music Collective, in such venues as Ordway Concert Hall, Merkin Hall, (le) poisson rouge, DiMenna Center, Roulette, Symphony Space, Leipzig’s Gewandhaus, St. David’s Hall in Cardiff, and the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing.

An award recipient from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, ASCAP, and American Composers Forum, his compositions and playing have been featured on NPR’s Performance Today, WQXR’s Q2 platform, and albums on New Amsterdam Records, Innova, New Focus, and Naxos labels.

A graduate of Queens College and the Yale School of Music, he teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and Hoff-Barthelson Music School, and is a co-founder of Invisible Anatomy, a composer-performer collective, as well as Grand Band, a piano sextet described by The New York  Times as “a kind of new-music supergroup.” Paul is also a member of the new music ensemble, Contemporaneous.