A native of Baltimore, pianist-composer-educator Dick Katz graduated from Manhattan School of Music and studied with Teddy Wilson at The Juilliard School. Over a career that spans almost 50 years, he has performed and recorded with many leading jazz figures, including J.J. Johnson, Sonny Rollins, Oscar Pettiford, Benny Carter, Lee Konitz, Coleman Hawkins, Roy Eldridge, Stan Getz, Tim Hall, Thad Jones, Kenny Clarke, Ron Carter, Elvin Jones, Kenny Dorham, and Philly Joe Jones, as well as singers Carmen McRae and Helen Merrill. He was the pianist with the American Jazz Orchestra (directed by John Lewis) from its inception in 1986 until it disbanded in 1992. Katz has also recorded as a leader and has appeared on more than 70 albums, as well as performing at major international jazz festivals and on radio and TV. He was a cofounder, with Orrin Keepnews, of Milestone Records and a past governor of the New York chapter of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Science4 (NARAS). As a writer, he has received two Grammy nominations for album notes and has contributed essays to jazz anthologies produced by the Smithsonian Institution, Mosaic Records, Oxford University Press, and the Franklin Mint Records Society. Katz, who is currently on the jazz faculty of Manhattan School of Music, has also taught at the New School University and was a faculty member of the Summer Jazz Institute at Skidmore College from 1987 to 1991. He has recently composed the music for a theater piece about Leonardo do Vinci and The Last Supper. Manhattan School of Music faculty from 1998-2009.

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