Jeremy Siskind, the chair of the Piano Department at Western Michigan University, is the winner of the 2012 Nottingham International Jazz Piano Competition and the second place winner of the 2011 Montreux Solo Piano Competition. As a pianist, he’s performed both jazz and classical music at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, in Japan, Switzerland, Thailand, England, India, France, and China. His 2012 CD, Finger-Songwriter, was placed in emusic.com’s Top 100 CDs of 2012 (in any genre) and hailed as “the most exciting musical project I’ve heard in a long time” by the weblog Jazz Police. His upcoming CD, Housewarming, features Grammy-winning vocalists Kurt Elling and Peter Eldridge.

As a pedagogue, Siskind has six publications with Hal Leonard, including a new instructional book, The Jazz Band Pianist. He’s a frequent contributor to Clavier Companion magazine and has presented workshops at the Music Teacher’s National Association conventions in New York, Anaheim, and Chicago.

Siskind was recently named the Artistic Director at the brand-new American Jazz Pianist Competition in Melbourne, Florida. A proud Yamaha Artist since 2013, he holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music (Jazz Performance and Music Theory) and Columbia University (English and Comparative Literature).