Dana School of Music announces Harold Danko residency

Beginning Tuesday, April 12, 2022 through Thursday, April 14 the Jazz Area in the Dana School of Music will host Youngstown State University alumnus and jazz pianist Harold Danko in YSU’s Bliss Hall. As part of his residency, Danko will perform two concerts and present a convocation lecture. All events are free and open to the public.

Originally from Masury, Ohio, Danko is a critically acclaimed jazz pianist, composer, band leader, recording artist, and Professor Emeritus from the Eastman School of Music, where he was the director of jazz studies. In addition to his large catalog of original music and recordings, Danko is known for his associations and recordings with Woody Herman, Thad Jones, Chet Baker, Gerry Mulligan, and Lee Konitz.

He was also the speaker at YSU’s spring 2021 commencement ceremony where he received an honorary doctorate.

Danko will perform music from his latest recordings “Rite Notes” and “Spring Garden” Tuesday, April 12 at 7:30 PM in the YSU Ford Theater. The concert will be presented as a solo jazz piano recital and both recordings are based on themes from Igor Stravinsky’s ballet “The Rite of Spring.”

Danko will present a convocation lecture titled “From Youngstown and YSU to NYC and Beyond” Thursday, April 14 at 4:00 PM in the YSU Ford Theater. He will also perform a final concert, “An Evening with Harold Danko,” Thursday at 7:30 PM. The concert will feature Danko with the YSU Jazz Combos and Jazz Ensemble. The Jazz Combos will perform Danko’s compositions and the Jazz Ensemble will feature music that Danko performed and recorded with Herman, Mulligan, Konitz, and Jones. 

Danko, whose career spans more than half a century, has established himself as a distinguished pianist, composer, and band leader in part due to his impressive resume of collaborations with legendary artists as well as in recordings, television, and video. These include Baker’s classic 1987 Tokyo concert as well as featured performances with Jones, Mel Lewis, Mulligan, Konitz, and James Moody’s version of “Giant Steps.” More than thirty of Harold's own CDs have been released on the SteepleChase and SunnySide labels, and his catalog of original compositions has earned awards from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers yearly since 1980. Based in New York City during his freelance days in the 1970s and 1980s, Danko performed and toured internationally with vocalists Liza Minnelli, Chris Connor, Anita O'Day, Sheila Jordan, Dee Dee Bridgewater, and Mel Torme, composed music for off-Broadway and television productions, and participated in over 100 recordings.

Beginning his piano studies at the age of five, Danko became serious about pursuing a career in jazz at the age of 15 when he commenced studies with Gene Rush in Youngstown, Ohio. After classical studies with Delores Fitzer he set his sights on the Dana School of Music, where his brothers Joe and John were saxophonists in early extracurricular jazz big bands. At Dana, he studied piano with Morris Risenhoover and Robert Hopkins and majored in music education while playing gigs and teaching in the area. Among musicians he worked with in those days were fellow Dana students Tony Leonardi, who played bass, drummers Bill Tragesser, Mike Smith, and Tony Pushcar, cellist Ron DeVaughn, organist Emmanuel Riggins, and saxophonist Bill Lawrence, along with other professionals in the region, such as drummers Phil Laughlin, Tommy Voorhees, and Shedrick Hobbs, bassists Steve Zordich, Pete Bettiker, John Petrovich, and Tom Dorsey, saxophonists Mike Fogarty, Tom Frabotta, and Dennis Hill, and vocalists Maureen McGovern and George Galip. After graduating cum laude in 1969 with a Bachelor of Music in music education from Youngstown State University and a stint in the First U.S. Army New York Band, Danko landed the piano chair in Herman’s Thundering Herd, which launched his high profile as a much sought-after jazz pianist.

Danko is a Professor Emeritus at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, where he chaired the jazz studies program for 11 years and established the jazz performance workshop curriculum. In 2007 he received a Bridging Fellowship for research on the relationship between speech and music in the Linguistics Department of the University of Rochester. Prior to his appointment at Eastman, he served on the faculties of the Manhattan School of Music, the New School/Mannes, Hartt College, and other institutions. His featured column, “Solo Piano,” appeared in Keyboard Magazine for over five years, and his improvisation method “The Illustrated Keyboard Series” is a highly regarded reference work. In the early 1990s after moving with his family to New Haven, Connecticut, Danko co-founded Jazz Haven, a non-profit jazz advocacy organization that remains active in the community.

His newest quartet CD “Spring Garden” was released in March 2021 on the SteepleChase label. “Rite Notes,” a follow up solo piano CD, will be released in June 2022. Both were inspired by the music of Igor Stravinsky's “Rite of Spring.”