Performance Year: 2026
GRAMMY Award-winning pianist Bill Charlap has performed with many of the leading artists of our time, including Phil Woods, Tony Bennett, Gerry Mulligan, Wynton Marsalis, Freddy Cole, and Houston Person. Born in New York City, Charlap began playing the piano at age three. His father was Broadway composer Moose Charlap, whose credits include Peter Pan, and his mother is GRAMMY-nominated singer Sandy Stewart. He is known for his interpretations of American popular song. Time magazine wrote, “Bill Charlap approaches a song the way a lover approaches his beloved…no matter how imaginative or surprising his take on a song is, he invariably zeroes in on its essence.”
In 1997, Charlap formed the Bill Charlap Trio with bassist Peter Washington and drummer Kenny Washington, now recognized as one of the leading groups in jazz. In 2000, he was signed to Blue Note Records and received two GRAMMY Award nominations for Somewhere: The Songs of Leonard Bernstein and The Bill Charlap Trio: Live at the Village Vanguard. In 2016, Tony Bennett & Bill Charlap: The Silver Lining, The Songs of Jerome Kern was awarded the GRAMMY for Best Traditional Pop Album. In 2024, the Bill Charlap Trio released And Then Again, their second live recording from the legendary Village Vanguard club, and in June 2025, he and vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater released Elemental, their debut duet album to great accalim.
From 2004 to 2023, Charlap was Artistic Director of New York City’s “Jazz in July” Festival at 92NY, and he has produced concerts for Jazz at Lincoln Center, New Jersey Performing Arts Center, Chicago Symphony Center, and the Hollywood Bowl. Charlap is married to renowned jazz pianist and composer Renee Rosnes, and the two artists often collaborate in a duo piano setting. He is currently the Director of Jazz Studies at William Paterson University in Wayne, New Jersey.
