Adrianne Duncan

Pianist, singer, songwriter and composer Adrianne Duncan has been making music since the age of six. The daughter of renowned classical guitarist Charles Duncan (author of The Art of Classical Guitar Playing), she honed her classical piano skills through private study, master classes with such luminaries as Murray Perahia, Leon Fleisher, Emanuel Ax and Ruth Laredo, and summers spent at such institutions as Tanglewood and Brevard Music Centers.

Adrianne attended Northwestern University on a music scholarship and is the winner of numerous piano competitions and awards. She has performed in multiple capacities: as a solo artist, in a duo, as an accompanist for individual musicians and musical theatre productions, with chamber groups, in jazz ensembles and as a soloist with symphony orchestra.

Now based in Los Angeles, Adrianne has performed in venues in the United States and internationally. She has performed and recorded with some of LA’s most noted musicians, including the Grammy-nominated Lado B Brazilian Project, with whom she toured Brazil on keyboards and vocals. She has played and sung on numerous recordings (including The Jazz Chamber with legendary multireedist Bennie Maupin) and was the musical director of the new musical Twins for its premiere in Berlin. Also a producer and arranger, her projects include albums for actor-singers Jacqueline Emerson (The Hunger Games) and Larry Wolf (Pound, Putney Swope). Her piano playing can be heard on film soundtracks including The Chameleon and The Young Kieslowski, as well as the short films Impact! The Musical and Na Na Na (Na), which screened at Britain’s Kindfest 2020 to an audience of over 50,000 viewers.

In addition to her own project, Adrianne performs regularly with her seven-person vocal improvisation collective Fish To Birds at such Los Angeles venues as the Blue Whale, Catalina Jazz Club, REDCAT at Disney Hall and the Skirball Cultural Center. She was the founder and producer of LA Modern Jazz Series, a concert series featuring world-class creative jazz musicians.

Adrianne’s own compositions are rooted in the jazz and classical traditions but informed by such songwriter-poets as Joni Mitchell and Nick Drake. Her dense harmonies and often unconventional structures leave room for improvisation and melodic development, supporting quirky and intelligent lyrics that speak to her love of story and character.

Adrianne Duncan’s tracks

• Schumann Concerto in A Minor, Op. 54, No. 1 by Adrianne Duncan