DeRose, Dena

DeRose, Dena, pianist, singer; b. Binghamton, N.Y., Feb. 15,1966. She began her formal piano training at the age of three after her mother heard her pick out simple melodies on a toy chord organ. She studied classical music through her early teens and, in high school, began to explore other styles of music. In college, she began to build a career as a jazz pianist, performing with bassists Slam Stewart and Major Hoiley, and appearing as a leader in and around upstate N.Y. In the mid-1980s, a series of hand surgeries interrupted her musical career. Unable to play the piano, she began to sing. For about a year and a half she worked exclusively as a vocalist, and after making a full recovery, began to integrate her piano playing with her singing. Since moving to N.Y.C. in 1992, she has performed on piano with Randy Brecker, Bob Moses, Peter Washington, Billy Drummond, Virginia Mayhew, Bruce Forman, Terry Clarke, Ingrid Jensen, and Dottie Dodgion, among others. She also appears frequently as both pianist and vocalist with her own quartet in N.Y. She has been teaching privately since the early 1980s. She conducts seminars and master classes at community music centers, high schools, and colleges, and is a member of the piano and voice faculty of Stanford Univ’s Stanford Jazz workshop (summer program). She also serves as accompanist and vocal coach for the Actors’ Guild at the New School for Social Research in N.Y. She is on the faculty at The N.J. Performing Arts Center’s Jazz for Teens programs under the direction of Rufus Reid. In 1999, she was chosen as the jazz vocal adjudicator for The Star-Ledger Award Scholarship given by The N.J. Performing Arts Center in Newark, N.J.

Discography

Introducing Dena DeRose (1996); Another World (1999); Rob Bargad: The Shadow of Your Smile (1998).

—Lewis Porter