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The American pianist, Fredrick Moyer, was born into an artistic family. His grandparents were all accomplished artists. On his mother's side, his grandmother was a poet; his grandfather Paul Green a Pulitzer-prize-winning playwright. On his father's side his grandmother was a singer and his grandfather David Earl Moyer (1895-1987), a professor of piano at Oberlin College and student of Ferruccio Busoni and Ernst von Dohnanyi. Moyer's father, a trombonist, was a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra for 35 years, and his mother an accomplished pianist, harpsichordist and singer. Moyer began playing the piano with his mother at the age of 7. Musically eclectic from the start, his youthful obsessions moved from the Tijuana Brass to Oscar Peterson to Sergei Rachmaninov. In junior high and high school, he studied jazz intensively and was for a time determined to become a jazz pianist. While still in high school, Moyer received a full scholarship to attend the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia while in high school. He later attended and garduated from the Indiana University. His major teachers were his mother, Theodore Lettvin, Eleanor Sokoloff and Menahem Pressler.
Fredrick Moyer first appeared with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at age 14, performed with Boston Pops Orchestra as a teenager. Shortly after graduation, a highly acclaimed New York debut at Carnegie Recital Hall in 1982 launched him on a career that has flourished ever since, bringing him to 41 countries, and to such venues as Suntory Hall in Tokyo, the Ambassador Auditorium in Pasadena, Sydney Opera House, Windsor Castle and the Kennedy Center. Moyer has appeared as piano soloist with such orchestras as the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Dallas Symphony Orchestras, Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, Houston Symphony Orchestra, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, Latvian Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra of Brazil, Netherlands Radio Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, and the major orchestras of Australia. Conductors under whom he has performed include Vladimir Ashkenazy, Sir Colin Davis, Charles Dutoit, Gunther Schuller, and David Zinman. He has recorded five W.A. Mozart concerti for the Norwegian radio, and performed a series of three S. Rachmaninov piano concerti with the Japan Philharmonic.
During over 25 years as a full-time concert pianist, Frederick Moyer has carved out a vital and unusual career characterized by an extremely exacting approach to music-making and a wide variety of interests. His enthusiasm, exacting artistry, and adventurous programming have made him a favorite among audiences of all ages. In recital, his delightful commentary from the stage brings the audience into the heart of the musical experience. His repertoire reflects an affinity for a wide variety of styles and composers.
Chamber music performances have brought him to such prestigious venues as Marlboro Music Festival and Tanglewood, in collaborations with such names as baritone Benjamin Luxon, violinist Salvatore Accardo, cellist Nancy Green and the Muir String Quartet.
Frederick Moyer is an artist with his eyes open. He has developed several computer programs to help him analyze and memorize piano works. He was the first to make a commercial recording using the Bosendorfer 290 SE Recording Piano. His CD of Clara Schumann's Piano Concerto was the first commercial recording of a large-scale Romantic work using an orchestra created from sampled sounds. He has written many software programs to aid with practicing, analyzing, recording and performing music. He has also designed software that helps a live soloist to stay synchronized with a recorded accompaniment. He has been hired by several art museums to create art-music presentations that interpret works of visual art. He often offers his services to benefit causes that he believes in. Over the past 25 years, he has taken a strong interest in a music school in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and visits there regularly to teach and perform. Currently he is working on a recording of piano concerti where the orchestra is created with a computer using "sampling" techniques.
Frederick Moyer started JRI Recordings in 1992 and is proud to see it supporting fellow musicians John Cheek, Babette Hierholzer, Gordon Green, Benjamin Luxon, Gisele Ben-Dor, Christine Michelle Smith and Nancy Green. His 22 recordings on the Biddulph, GM and JRI labels span virtually the entire piano repertoire from J.S. Bach to the latest composers (total of over thirty composers). A champion of contemporary music, many composers have written for him including Louis Calabro, Donal Fox, Kenneth Frazelle, Gordon Green, David Kechley, Ned Rorem, Andersen Viana and 1996 Pulitzer Prize winner George Walker. Moyer commissioned Walker's Piano Sonata No. 4 and presented it in its first recording in 1986.
With the collaboration of electrical engineer and uncle Dr. Paul Green, Frederick Moyer unearthed the unfinished manuscript of a Fourth Piano Sonata by composer Robert Schumann. They have created a performable edition of the work, as well as “a very impressive download application that lets you follow, on the same page, both Schumann's original and the newly printed version, while listening to Moyer play the music (each measure is highlighted in sync with the playing).”
Frederick Moyer is the founding member of the Jazz Arts Trio (piano, bass and drums), which includes his childhood friends bassist Peter Tillotson and drummer Peter Fraenkel. This ensemble performs and reinterprets transcriptions of recorded performances by piano trios led by Oscar Peterson, Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock, Erroll Garner, and Red Garland and others. In 2008 Hal Leonard Publications released the book Jazz Classics containing six of Moyer’s transcriptions of jazz performances by Vince Guaraldi, Oscar Peterson, Erroll Garner, Horace Silver, and Bill Evans. This collection includes a play along CD that features members of the Jazz Arts Trio.
Frederick Moyer is deeply interested in education and outreach, and is well-known for his residencies of one day to three weeks which combine major performances, master-classes, workshops, school performances and other activitites to promote classical music within communities.
Frederick Moyer's activities have been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities, the United States Information Service, the Alcoa Foundation, the Astral Foundation, the Paul Green Foundation, Affiliate Artists, Concert Artists Guild, the Western States Arts Federation, the US China Arts Exchange anthe Korean Cultural Foundation. |
