Kirk Nurock ~ Solo Jazz Pianist at Metropolitan Room

Kirk Nurock orchestrated for Leonard Bernstein, Dizzy Gillespie and Meredith Monk, composed a work for 2O voices and 3 canines which he conducted at Carnegie Hall, and won a scholarship at age 16, awarded by Duke Ellington. But when he sits down to a piano, strange universes collide. The Metropolitan Room is proud to present his offbeat deconstructions of standards and jazz classics.

"Nurock's solos move from classical to stride to boogie to free and back. At times you will seem to hear two pianos. Monk meets Tatum!" - JazzReview.com

"If you've never heard his relentlessly elegant--yes those two words can go together in his case--piano playing, make a beeline to this rare gig." - Village Voice...

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Kirk Nurock orchestrated for Leonard Bernstein, Dizzy Gillespie and Meredith Monk, composed a work for 2O voices and 3 canines which he conducted at Carnegie Hall, and won a scholarship at age 16, awarded by Duke Ellington. But when he sits down to a piano, strange universes collide. The Metropolitan Room is proud to present his offbeat deconstructions of standards and jazz classics.

"Nurock's solos move from classical to stride to boogie to free and back. At times you will seem to hear two pianos. Monk meets Tatum!" - JazzReview.com

"If you've never heard his relentlessly elegant--yes those two words can go together in his case--piano playing, make a beeline to this rare gig." - Village Voice

A veteran of some 40 years in the music world, Nurock founded the Natural Sound Workshop in 1971, dedicated to exploring the myriad sounds of untrained voices. In the 1980’s, he delved “cross-species communication." A documentary, “Animalsong,” chronicles his works for human chorus and the animals of the Bronx Zoo.

“Nurock is a composer-pianist who has always defied categorization.” Village Voice

His compositions have been recorded by Theo Bleckmann, Jane Ira Bloom, Jay Clayton, Frank Foster, Miles Griffith, Judy Niemack, Bobby Previte, Janis Siegel and Clark Terry. He arranged for James Taylor, a Woody Allen film, 5 Broadway musicals, and the Israel Philharmonic. His projects have been recorded on Columbia, Impulse, Koch and Tzadik and broadcast on NBC, PBS and Bravo. A graduate of Juilliard, Nurock currently teaches at the New School Jazz Program and was a professor at Berlin's Hochschule der Künste.

Keyboard Magazine called him "joyously iconoclastic" and The New York Times summed it up: “Mr. Nurock has unique credentials.” Come hear why!

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