Artist description Frank French is a musician’s musician. He has studied, performed and recorded extensive works by Bach,immersed himself in the music of Gottschalk, assuming Gottschalk’s persona while performing those works, recorded the complete rags of James Scott and produced definitive two-piano recordings with Scott Kirby . His 1990 Rag, Belle of Louisville has become enormously popular and has been called the “Maple Leaf Rag of the 1990's” He is also a pioneer composer and one of the principal architects of the new offshoot of ragtime Terra Verde “ *

Music Style Pan American Music - US Latin American Piano & instrumental styles

Musical Influences Louis Moreau Gottschalk, Ernesto Nazareth, Jelly Roll Morton, Scott Joplin

Similar Artists none

Artist History Frank French was born in Oakland, 1952 and grew up in San Francisco’s Haight Ashbury district. A survivor of the Psychedelic 1960's, he became part of the city’s “outside” music scene in the early 1970's while completing his musical education at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and San Francisco State University. It was during this time that he became acquainted with Cuban and Porto Rican dance music as pianist with “Papo y su Preferida”, noting the immediate connection between Antillean music and piano Ragtime. Moving to Vienna, Austria in the late 1970's he assumed the lifestyle of a Bohemian, tuning pianos by day and bolstering Vienna’s counter-cultural cabaret scene by night. Teaming up with Latin Americans living there, he formed one of the earliest Salsa bands in Central Europe, introducing the music to Austrians, Swiss and Germans, and paving the way for noted performers like Ray Baretto to make debut performances in that part of the world. During his Austrian residence he also found time to record the entire Well-Tempered Clavier of J.S. Bach, thus securing a firm footing in the music of both the Old and New Worlds. Returning to the United States in 1983 he became a noted figure in the world of syncopated piano music, first as a performer and later as composer of such notable and widely- recorded instrumentals as Belle of Louisville and Backdown Buck. Moving to Colorado in 1990, he founded and directed the Rocky Mountain Ragtime Festival and Institute working as a musical activist in schools, community concerts, radio and community television. In 1996 he visited Cuba with the Pianos to Havana project and subsequently concertized in Cuba and the United States raising funds to send pianos and technical support to music schools in Cuba and to improve relations between people of both nations. Frank French espouses the Creole Tradition of the melting pot of cultures in the music of the New World, especially that of the United States, the Carribean and Brazil. As a composer, teacher, and performer he continues to emphasize progressive assimilation of musical and cultural concepts in order to create an aesthetic and societal texture in which the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. His teaching seminars include both introductory and hands-on sessions for all ages and all levels.

Group Members Frank French - Composer, Pianist, Peformance Artist, Teacher

Instruments Piano, Percussion, Orchestrations, Ensemble Arangements

Albums Buon Ritmo Sempre Marcato

Press Reviews "Foot-tapping vivid, virtuosic� Los Angeles Times �Spirited, sophisticatedperformances�The Kansas City Star�Swinging Saga� The Denver Post Frank French always gives usmasterfully clean and powerfulperformances . He plays withintensity, drive and completecommand of his material.�.. A persuasive, highly lyricalpianist� The Mississippi Rag� A winning combination of bubblyoptimism, braggadocio, sharptiming and showy keyboardtechnique.� Monterey Bay Register � Takes us on a musical journeythrough this highly colorfulmontage� The Ragtimes The Sacramento Bee - Monday, April 2, 2001 E3 I Frank French notes Ragtime�s world ties BY William GlackinBee Critic at LargeMore people are learning that ragtimeis not jazz.Scott Joplin, pioneeringhis kind of music at the turn of the19th century, was following the classicalforms of Schumann and Shubert, Beethovenand Mozart, and pinned his highestaspirations on opera. But his music still has adistinguishing and seductive lilt, in its blendof syncopation and something that soundslike the high-stepping cakewalk of his raceand day Today, a native San Franciscan namedFrank French, who has come home to thatcity after years of pursuing an internationalcareer of research and piano playing as oneof Joplin's leading followers, isdemonstrating rag- time's other connections,not as part of the ancestry of jazz, but as apart of an international American music thatincludes Latin- America and the tango andalso New Orleans and the virtuoso pianomusic of its Louis Moreau Gottschalk, to saynothing of Cuba, where French spent years inthe mid-1990s writing and playing his owncomposition�s as well as those of others.French played a superbly stimulating andenjoyable concert in the First UnitedMethodist' Church Friday night under thesponsorship of the Sacramento RagtimeSociety, part of the West, Coast RagtimeSociety. It included music by Joplin,Gottschalk and others, all played with an Impressive power, clarity and sensitivity ona a smaIl grand piano (the church's own) thatFrench described afterward, in an approvingtone, as adequate. That it did indeed seem adequate to thismusic said a lot for the player, too, A lot of itwas 'big' piano music, especially theGottschalk pieces, but French had the powerand technique required. He was also true tothat other aspect of ragtime that makes it solovable and , in this age, so rare: itsgentleness and geniality. The connections to other styles werefascinating, particularly those to the tango.Astor Piazzola, the great tango composer,usually included a major piano :role in the'music he wrote for his various ensembles.The local ragtime society meets SundayAfternoons from 2:30 to 5:30 P.M.. AtSudwerk Brewery and Grill across from CalExpol l375 expo Blvd., and welcomes play-ers and listeners without charge. it is led byPetra and Bub Sullivan at (916) 457-3324and Merv Graham at (530) 273-0487,

Location San Francisco, California - USA

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