Fifteen-Minutes-of-Fame: with Thomas Piercy

Thomas Piercy is a veteran and an expert of Fifteen-Minutes-of-Fame. Thomas Piercy has been a part of 6 different sets of Fifteen-Minutes-of-Fame, performing in different ensembles, and solo and with different instruments. His commitment to the genre and dedication to the work of living composers in unparraled. Thomas Piercy is a true champion of new music by living composers.

Thomas Piercy is a critically acclaimed musician with orchestral, concerto, solo and chamber music appearances throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. His performances have been described by critics as "passionate," "pulling out all the stops," "the best Piazzolla in NYC," and by the New York Times as "brilliant," "playing with refinement and flair" and "evoking a panache in the contemporary works." He studied at the Juilliard School and Mannes College of Music. He studied clarinet extensively with the English clarinetist Gervase De Peyer; additional studies were with Kalmen Opperman and Leon Russianoff. Hichiriki studies were with Hitomi Nakamura in Tokyo. A versatile artist defying categorization - the clarinetist on the Emmy Award-winning Juno Baby CD and DVDs; performing Mozart with mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade; playing Broadway songs with Raoul Julia; working with the composer Leonard Bernstein; appearing in a KRS-ONE rap music video; performing concert improvisations with jazz pianist Donal Fox; premiering new works; recording with members of Maroon 5 - as an instrumentalist, he has performed and recorded for Broadway and Off-Broadway, commercial recordings, television, radio, videos, and movie soundtracks. Mr. Piercy has performed at many acclaimed concerts halls including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series (Chicago, Illinois), Centre Pompidou (Paris, France), Wigmore Hall (London, England), Accademia di Santa Cecilia (Rome, Italy) and Tokyo Opera City Hall (Tokyo, Japan). He has performed and premiered over 200 compositions written for him, including works from emerging composers to composers that have won such prominent awards as the Takemitsu Prize, the Geneva Composition Prize, the Grammy Award, the Latin Grammy Award, and the Pulitzer Prize. He has had arrangements and transcriptions published by Boosey & Hawkes, and contributed to clarinet study books and clarinet compositions published by Carl Fischer, Inc., and Baron Publishing. Recordings available on such labels as the Albany, Capstone, Changing Tones, DGA, NJSF and Tonada labels.

More information at www.ThomasPiercy.com.