Season Schedule

About the Featured Artists

Pianist Aaron Diehl has quietly re-defined the lines between jazz and classical, and built a global career around his nuanced, understated approach to music-making. Praised for his “melodic precision, harmonic erudition, and elegant restraint” (The New York Times), Diehl has performed with musical giants such as Wynton Marsalis, Cécile McLorin Salvant, Tyshawn Sorey, and Philip Glass, and has been a soloist with the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, and the Cleveland Orchestra, working with conductors like Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Marin Alsop, and Alan Gilbert. In 2023, Diehl was named Artistic Director of 92NY’s Jazz in July Festival, succeeding the legendary Bill Charlap.

With an expansive, orchestral, lyrical approach to the piano that channels predecessors like Ahmad Jamal, Erroll Garner, Art Tatum and Jelly Roll Morton, Diehl has headlined the Monterey, Detroit, and Newport Jazz Festivals, and had residencies at Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Village Vanguard, SF Jazz, and many more. He counts among his mentors towering figures such as John Lewis, Kenny Barron, Fred Hersch, Marcus Roberts, and Eric Reed.

2024-25 season highlights include two world premieres with The Knights at Carnegie Hall: Suite from Book of Ways by Keith Jarrett and Michael Schachter’s rhapsody honoring the legacy of George Gershwin, which will also be performed with co-commissioner ProMusica Chamber Orchestra. Diehl tours with the Tyshawn Sorey Trio and Sandbox Percussion and with his own Aaron Diehl Trio. He will also appear with the Baltimore and Nashville Symphonies, and the Frankfurt Radio Big Band.

In 2023, Diehl released his GRAMMY-nominated recording of Mary Lou Williams’s Zodiac Suite with The Knights and Eric Jacobsen. As the first-ever studio recording of Zodiac Suite, it has been touted as “a joyous, enchanting creation… a triumph” (The Guardian). The album is Diehl’s fourth on Mack Avenue Records.

Diehl was born in Columbus, Ohio, where he grew up listening to his grandfather, pianist and trombonist Arthur Baskerville. In 2002, at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Essentially Ellington competition, where he placed as a finalist, Diehl attracted the attention of Wynton Marsalis, who invited him to join his septet for a European tour. After studying at Julliard, Diehl was awarded the 2011 American Pianists Association’s Cole Porter Fellowship. Diehl, who holds commercial single and multi-engine pilot certifications, inherited a lifelong love of flying from his father who was himself an avid pilot. Diehl has been a Steinway Artist since 2016.

Michael Schachter is a composer, writer, pianist, and scholar. His compositions have been performed by leading orchestras, choirs, chamber ensembles, and soloists around the country, in venues ranging from the Hollywood Bowl to the Smithsonian to the Minnesota Centennial Showboat.

Current projects include a new concerto for pianist Aaron Diehl honoring the centennial of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, premiering at Carnegie Hall (October 2024), as well as an album-length work for Grammy-winning choir Conspirare to inaugurate their new performance, recording, and community center in Austin, TX.

His first music-theatrical work “The Black Clown” (composer, co-librettist) premiered to sold-out runs at the American Repertory Theater and Lincoln Center, where it was a NYT Critic’s Pick. He is currently working with Seaview, Play Hooky, and Creative Partners Productions in developing future productions for Broadway and touring. His concerto for Grammy-nominated violinist Tessa Lark, Cycle of Life, finally premiered after pandemic delays in April 2022 and was profiled on PBS (“Craft in America”), as well as featured in the final concert of the 2023 Big Ears Festival.

As a scholar, Michael recently completed a three-year term as Junior Fellow in the Harvard University Society of Fellows. He lives with his wife and two young children in Burlington, VT.