Craig Urquhart

Craig Urquhart emerged as a moody new age composer and one of America’s most accomplished independent pianists. Childhood in Michigan sparked his musical fixation once he encountered Leonard Bernstein’s CBS series The Young People’s Concerts with the New York Philharmonic, prompting him to begin studying piano. Immersed in the work of Joni Mitchell, Brian Eno, and Laura Nyro as well as the classical lineage of Bach and Chopin, he enrolled in the University of Michigan’s music program. After completing a Master’s degree in Composition, he settled in New York and accepted a staff position at the Harlem School of the Arts.

The late 1970s brought an introduction to Leonard Bernstein; their immediate rapport stemmed from Urquhart’s pointed questions on musical matters. The encounter restored his creative momentum during a stretch of frustration with his own atonal pieces, and in 1985 Bernstein invited him to serve as personal assistant. Their close association lasted until Bernstein’s death in 1990, after which Urquhart began recording his first albums on the piano he had inherited from the Maestro.

He focused on classical art songs written with greater lyricism than his earlier output. Multiple releases appeared during the 1990s, yet the 1994 album Epitaphs and Portraits drew the widest recognition for its compassionate AIDS theme. Urquhart spent the remainder of the decade pursuing other musical projects before returning to the studio in 2002 to complete Evocation.