Bryan Pezzone

Bryan Pezzone is the consummate cross-over pianist of his generation. He excels in classical, contemporary, jazz, and experimental genres and is well known for his versatility and virtuosity as a recording and performing artist, improviser, and composer.

He performs with many major symphony orchestra associations, tours widely with the jazz group Free Flight, and is known in the Los Angeles area as a primary freelance pianist for film and television soundtrack recording, contemporary music premieres, and chamber music. Pezzone is the pianist on most all of the cartoons released by Warner Brothers and Disney, he was the principal pianist with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra from its inception in 1991 through 1999, and received a rare on-screen credit for his performance on the soundtrack of “The Game” starring Michael Douglas. His workshops on his comprehensive approach to improvisation are frequently requested and he is a consulting editor for the well-known publication “Piano and Keyboard.”

As a soloist, Pezzone has performed with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, Pasadena Pops, Santa Monica Symphony, Santa Clarita Symphony, San Antonio Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, United States International University Orchestra, U.C. Irvine Symphony Orchestra, Eastman Philharmonic, and the Pacific Symphony.

Since beginning his career in Los Angeles in 1987, Pezzone has worked with many of the premiere contemporary music conductors; Pierre Boulez, Oliver Knussen, John Adams, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Kent Nagano, and John Williams. He is featured in collaborations on a vast number of professionally released recordings, and has been involved with nearly every major festival, series, and performing arts organization, including: regular appearances on Sundays at Four (broadcast live on KUSC FM 91.5), Monday Evening Concerts, the Green Umbrella Series with both the Cal Arts New Century Players and the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group, the Ojai Festival, Joeffrey Ballet – soloist in Stravinsky’s “Les Noces”, Southwest Chamber Music Series, and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.

Pezzone received his Bachelor of Music from the Eastman School of Music in 1984 where he was awarded the Performers Certificate and won the concerto competition. He was invited to the Tanglewood Music Center two successive summers as a full scholarship fellow in 1983 and 1984 where he received the C.D. Jackson Master Award. He attended the Banff Centre during its winter term on scholarship from 1984-1985 as an alternative to graduate studies in order to have the necessary time to freely blend various aesthetics and diverse performance traditions into a unique approach.