Kurt Ellenberger

Since: 2020 | Position: Editor | Location: Grand Rapids | Page Views: 10,238

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About Me

Kurt Ellenberger is a pianist/composer/author who enjoys listening to a wide variety of music while making his own excellent wine, and tending to his small flock of sheep.

Kurt Ellenberger is a pianist, composer, and author whose work includes music for a wide range of ensembles. His writings include a jazz theory book, other pedagogical writings, and many essays that appeared in his arts blog entitled Also Sprach FraKathustra, which was published from 2010-2017 by The Huffington Post–Arts and Culture. He has recorded on Innova Recordings, Ghostly International, and Challenge-A Records (the Netherlands), among others, and has been hailed as “a gifted pianist who combines the lyricism of Bill Evans with the energy of Keith Jarrett.” He was a member of the Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble, whose recordings of Terry Riley’s “IN C: Remixed” and Steve Reich’s “Music for 18 Musicians” have been featured in The New York Times, as well as in many of the nation’s leading publications, including The New Yorker. Ellenberger is a retired faculty member who taught at the Frederik Meijer Honors College at Grand Valley State University. He is also a Fulbright Scholar who taught in Austria at the Kunstuniversität Graz (University of the Arts in Graz) at the Jazz Institute (2013) and at the Institute for Music Aesthetics (2023). He also served as an artistic advisor on the Board of Trustees for the city of Mannheim, Germany.

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Favorite Musicians / Bands

Allan Holdsworth

Bill Evans

John Taylor

Josh Lawrence

Kurt Ellenberger

My Jazz Story

I heard the Stan Kenton band and Duke Ellington when I was about 12, in a live concert on NPR. I was transfixed. Shortly after that, I heard Holst's "The Planets" on the same Detroit NPR TV station. I went out and bought albums from all of the artists and thus began my lifelong love of jazz and classical music.