Biography

Neal Kurz has appeared nationally as a collaborative pianist. He has appeared in performance with Camilla Wicks, Arthur Weisberg, Kathleen Winkler, Brian Lewis, Sadao Harada, Toby Appel, Kate Ransom, Lawrence Stomberg, and Norman Fischer, among others. He studied with Frank Glazer and Rebecca Penneys at the Eastman School of Music, and with Martin Katz at the University of Michigan.

Kurz has been on the staff at the Meadowmount School of Music, appearing in performance there and at the Lake Placid Center for the Arts with Alan Bodman and Corey Cerovsik. He has also appeared at the Roundtop Festival Institute, in Texas, and in performances with Jorja Fleezanis, Peter Rejto, James Dunham, Håkan Rosengren, and the Dorian Wind Quintet. He is currently on the faculty at the Philadelphia International Music Festival (PIMF) and has appeared in performances with Jennifer Montone and Mark Livshits.

He is a member of the collaborative piano staff at the Shepherd School of Music, and has worked with the students of Kathleen Winkler, Cho-Liang Lin, Ivo van der Werff, and Lynn Harrell. He is a regular keyboardist with the Houston Symphony and has accompanied the orchestra on tour performances in Carnegie Hall and in the UK. He appears in their Grammy Award-winning recording of Berg’s Wozzeck, and an upcoming release of works by Jennifer Higdon, for Naxos Records.

He has accompanied participants in several international competitions, including the Corpus Christi Young Artists’ Competition, Houston Symphony’s Ima Hogg Competition, the William Byrd Young Artists’ Competition, and the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. He has worked with Houston Grand Opera as a coach. Kurz has also arranged and performed numerous scores for silent films; DVD releases include “Captain Fracasse,” “The Parson’s Widow” and “Michael,” “Unseen Cinema,” and George Melies: Cinema Magician. Several of these releases have aired on Turner Classic Movies, Kanopy, and HBOMax.