Randy Klein

Randy Klein is an accomplished pianist, composer, record producer and the president of Jazzheads Records, an independent record label featuring improvised jazz.
 Randy Klein has been awarded the Simons Public Humanities Fellowship at the Hall Center for the Humanities at the University of Kansas for the 2011-2012 academic year. Randy is the recipient of the 2009 BMI Foundation Jerry Harrington Award for Outstanding Creative Achievement in Musical Theatre. His song cycle, Lineage won the 2009 CAP Grant sponsored by the American Music Center. He is the winner of four Southern Regional Emmy Awards:1996 - for the original score to the 90 minute film-documentary titled Richard Wright(Black Boy) PPS/BBC. He won the 1998 1999 and 2002 Southern Regional Emmy Awards in the category of "Outstanding Collaborative Achievement for Composer" for his work on Ticktock Minutes (PBS). Ticktock Minutes is the winner of the 1999 National Emmy Award for Best Public Service Announcement. He has been nominated for a 1998 Jerry Boch Award for his theater composition. He is the winner of the USA Songwriting Competition 2005 in the Jazz category and top two in the overall category for his composition "Data".
He is the winner of gold records for songs recorded by Polydor recording artist Millie Jackson, and composed and produced the dance hit "Watch The Closing Doors" for the RCA group IRT. He has had songs recorded by Candy Staton, Sarah Dash (formerly of LaBelle), the rap group Black Sheep, Memphis Bleak and Sesame Street.

His documentary film scores include: National Emmy winner Free To Dance (PBS Great Performances) and National Emmy winner Beyond Tara - The Extraordinary Life Of Hattie McDaniel (American Movie Classics).

His song cycle featuring the poetry of American author, Margaret Walker was featured at the 2004 Furious Flower Poetry Festival at James Madison University and the University of Kansas.

His recordings include: Randy Klein's Jazzheads (Jazzheads), Underground Romantic (Jazzheads), Just My Imagination (Slider Music) and Love Notes From The Bass (Jazzheads), Broadway Remembers (Main Street Productions), How Sweet It Is, Rock-A-Bye Baby (Rock Candy Music), Invitation In (Jazzheads), Piano Christmas (Jazzheads) and The Flowing (Jazzheads).

His musical theater works include Move!, a dance musical commissioned by the Royal Theatre Carre', Amsterdam (premiered April, 1992); I Don't Do Club Dates, staged reading at the Victory Theater September, 1991 by the National Musical Theater Network and at the John Harms Center for the Arts, Englewood, NJ, January 1994; and Capture The Moon, based on the Eastern European folklore stories of the Wise Men of Chelm. In 1989, I Don't Do Club Dates earned Randy a BMI Foundation grant for artistic promise in theater composition; Falling Apart, a chamber musical utilizing elements of both musical theater and the jazz concert; Bucky And His Friends, a full-length contemporary vaudeville show for stage, video and CD; The Thing About Joe, an original musical about a man who dreams of becoming a great maitre'd.

He is a member emeritus of the advanced BMI Lehman Engel Musical TheaterWorkshop, The Dramatists Guild, NARAS and an alumnus/visiting artist at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. Randy Klein is an exclusive Steinway artist.

His music compositions and piano playing can best be described as the best of eclecticism. The genres included in Randy Klein's musical repertoire are: solo piano improvisations, jazz compositions with and without lyrics, songs for musical theatre shows, music for children's educational TV, music for film and documentaries, R&B, pop, country and novelty songs, and improvisational synthesizer works.

He demands a high degree of excellence from his own work and those that he works with. The result is always great music.

For more information go to: www.randyklein.com