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Kurt Ellenberger
Kurt Ellenberger is a pianist/composer/author who enjoys listening to a wide variety of music while making his own excellent wine, and tending to his small flock of sheep.
About Me
Kurt Ellenberger is a pianist, composer, and author whose work includes music for a
wide range of
ensembles. His writings include a jazz theory book, other pedagogical writings, and
many essays that
appeared in his arts blog entitled Also Sprach FraKathustra, which was published
from 2010-2017
by The Huffington Post–Arts and Culture.
He has recorded on Innova Recordings, Ghostly International, and Challenge-A
Records (the
Netherlands), among others, and has been hailed as “a gifted pianist who combines
the lyricism of Bill
Evans with the energy of Keith Jarrett.” He was a member of the Grand Valley State
University New
Music
Ensemble, whose recordings of Terry Riley’s “IN C: Remixed” and Steve Reich’s
“Music for 18
Musicians” have been featured in The New York Times, as well as in many of the
nation’s leading
publications, including The New Yorker. Ellenberger is a retired faculty member who
taught at the Frederik Meijer Honors
College at Grand Valley State University. He is also a
Fulbright Scholar who taught in Austria at the Kunstuniversität Graz (University of the
Arts in Graz) at the Jazz Institute (2013) and at the Institute for Music Aesthetics
(2023). He also served as an artistic advisor on the Board of Trustees for the city of
Mannheim, Germany.
