About John Bayless
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John Bayless has an extraordinary imagination, sly wit, tremendous
musicality and an imposing technique, according to High Fidelity
Magazine, and has been proclaimed by the New York Times as an evocative
pianist with a lovely piano sound and considerable personal pizzazz. He
is an amazing pianist, improviser, composer, entertainer and recording
artist.
Over
the last four seasons, John Bayless has played more that 175 concerts,
performing in such cities as New York, Boston, Philadelphia, London,
Rome, Florence, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, Tokyo, Minneapolis
and Washington DC. He has appeared at Carnegie Hall in a performance of
his own West Side Story Concert Variations for solo piano and
orchestra, made his Tanglewood debut playing Gershwin's Rhapsody in
Blue with the Boston Pops, opened the San Francisco Summer Pops season
with the same work and appeared in three sold-out concerts at the
Hollywood Bowl with John Mauceri and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. That
same summer he returned to Italy for solo concerts in Florence,
Sorrento and Milan.
In 1997 he made his debut with the Royal
Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra in England and a four week 20 concert
North American tour under the baton of Carl Davis, featuring
performances of Rhapsody in Blue, culminating in New York City at
Lincoln Center.
He also made his debut with the Philadelphia
Orchestra (1998) performing his West Side Story Concert Variations and
his Bach Meets the Beatles repertoire. He appeared in a sold-out
concert at Rome's prestigious Villa Giulia Summer Festival presented by
the Accademia Nazionale Di Santa Cecilia. That same season Bayless
appeared in more than 50 concerts including New York, Toronto, Houston,
Santa Fe and returned to Europe for extended concerts in Italy, Finland
and other countries.
Bayless made his recording debut in 1985
with an album entitled Happy Birthday Bach, which was created in honor
of the Bach tercentennial celebration. Two subsequent releases, Bach
Meets the Beatles and Bach on Abby Road, contained his improvisations
on Beatles melodies and were phenomenally well received, the former
selected as one of the Top Ten Classical Crossover Recordings of the
1980's by Billboard Magazine. A compilation CD of the Beatles
recordings was released in 2004.
 His
exclusive recording contract with Angel/EMI brought forth four top
selling albums. Bayless Meets Bernstein: West Side Story Concert
Variations, based on Leonard Bernstein's timeless score, was a critical
success and a popular one as well. The Puccini Album - Arias for Piano
soared to Number One on Billboard Magazine's Classical Crossover Chart
where it remained for 18 weeks selling over 175,000 albums. The Movie
Album - Classical Pictures followed and is based on some of the most
beautiful movie music ever written, interwoven with the most famous
classical themes.
It debuted in 1997 and still remains a favorite of
audiences here and abroad. The fourth album was Romantica, Bayless'
interpretations of great Italian love songs and arias. It was and is
still considered to be one of the most romantic albums of 1999. In 2004
he recorded his first Christmas Album entitled Christmas Rhapsody for
Koch Entertainment Records. It has received accolades and tremendous
reviews in its debut year and was selected as one of the top five
favorite Christmas Albums of 2004 by Minnesota Public Radio.
John
Bayless' extensive performance background includes appearances at
Carnegie Hall where he made his debut with the Orchestra of New York in
1980 performing his own piano concerto Badinage - an essay for piano
and orchestra in 3 movements, and Rhapsody in Blue. His 1986 debut at
Lincoln Center, Avery Fisher Hall was part of the Mostly Mozart
Festival where he premiered his own transcriptions and improvisations
on Mozart's The Magic Flute and Don Giovanni. He appeared at London's
Wigmore Hall, and has created special programs with orchestras such as
the New York Philharmonic and the Cleveland Orchestra, performing both
classical and improvisational repertoire. In addition Bayless has made
two tours of Japan, performed at the Budapest Spring Festival and was
Artist in Residence for the London Symphony Orchestra's Leonard
Bernstein Festival, performing at a gala for Queen Elizabeth ll. He
returns to Japan in 2006 for a concert tour of 20 cities.
In
2001 the legendary Rosemary Clooney invited John to be her guest artist
for several pops concerts at performing arts venues in the United
States, including a performance with the San Francisco Symphony. One of
the highlights of the year was appearing in Ms. Clooney's famed
Christmas Shows at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Southern
California and at Feinstein's Supper Club in New York City. He has
conducted Master Classes at the Juilliard School of Music, Kent State
University, University of Houston and The Royal Academy of Music in
London.
Born and raised in Borger, Texas, John Bayless won a
scholarship to the Aspen School of Music at age 15, and two years later
moved to New York to study with Adele Marcus at The Juilliard School of
Music. Bayless was invited to participate as a composer in the
inaugural class of New York University's Musical Theater Masters Degree
Program where he studied with Leonard Bernstein, Jule Styne, Arthur
Laurents, Betty Comden and Adolph Green. His first musical, Grand
Duchy, a musical fable, has received stage readings at Playwright's
Horizon in New York City, The Papermill Playhouse in Millburn, New
Jersey and The Falcon Theatre in Los Angeles. A full-scale production
was recently mounted in Santa Barbara, California. It is represented by
Musical Theatre International.
He has received commissions from
The Newport Music Festival, The University of Maryland International
Piano Competition, and composed and performed the score for the
Metropolitan Museum of Art's television presentation of the Lila
Acheson Wallace Exhibition of 20th Century American Art. Mr. Bayless'
music can be heard nationally on PBS in 5 different television series.
Julia Child chose John to compose and perform the music for two of her
series: Baking with Julia and Julia and Jacques: Cooking at Home. He
also composed the music for Weir Cooking in the Wine Country with
Joanne Weir, Jacques Pepin's Fast Food My Way, and debuting this
spring, Lidia's Family Table with Lidia Bastianich.
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