Frank Kimbrough

In Memoriam 1956-2020

Pianist, composer, and educator Frank Kimbrough has been active on the New York jazz scene for nearly 35 years. He appears on 20 CDs as a leader or co-leader, and 70 more as a sideman. He won the Great American Jazz Piano Competition in 1985. His work as a pianist and composer has received funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Aaron Copland Foundation, and Chamber Music America’s Doris Duke Jazz Ensembles Project. His album Quartet was released in 2014. Kimbrough was a founding member and composer-in-residence of the Jazz Composers Collective (1992–2005). He has toured and recorded with the Maria Schneider Orchestra since 1993, and appears on her triple Grammy-winning album Winter Morning Walks with Dawn Upshaw and the Australian Chamber Orchestra, and on her collaboration with David Bowie as well as her album The Thompson Fields. Kimbrough has also worked with jazz legends Dewey Redman, Paul Motian, Paul Bley, and Lee Konitz. He has toured throughout the U.S., Canada, Brazil, Colombia, Europe, Japan, and Australia.

Kimbrough, a native of North Carolina, has served on the jazz faculty here since 2008 teaching applied jazz piano, jazz piano classes, and small ensemble. He is also involved with Juilliard’s Mentoring program and teaches in the school’s Pre-College program.