America the Beautiful, October 4, 2008

Richard Glazier

Richard Glazier is one of today’s foremost interpreters of the American Popular Songbook and most closely associated with music of George and Ira Gershwin. According to one critic, “Richard Glazier has Gershwin in his soul.” Trained in the classics, Glazier earned Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in piano performance from Indiana University School of Music and a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he was awarded the 2007 Alumni Achievement Award.

A childhood fan letter to Ira Gershwin began a three-year correspondence with the lyricist and culminated in a 1975 invitation to Gershwin’s Beverly Hills home. Glazier says, “The brilliant man….America’s best known lyricist, could not have been nicer to me or more encouraging. This meeting literally changed the course of my life, and it gives me enormous pleasure to tell [the Gershwin’s] stories and play their music for audiences everywhere.”