About

Pianist Jacqueline Schwab, heard on the sound track to Ken Burns’ Civil War, graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, where she majored in piano improvisation. She creates concert and film arrangements on traditional and vintage tunes from America, Scotland, Ireland and beyond—spinning out stories, in her variations on the themes. From Ken Burns: “Jacqueline Schwab brings more feeling and intensity to music than anyone I know. Her playing is insistent, physical, heartfelt and ... unusually moving.” Playing with “the jazz/classical improvisational spirit of Keith Jarrett and the touch of George Winston ....” (New England Folk Almanac), Schwab has performed on over a dozen of Burns’ documentaries, including his Grammy-winning Civil War, Baseball, Lewis and Clark, Mark Twain, The War, and The National Parks. She has performed at the White House for President Clinton, and also, with Scottish singer Jean Redpath, on public radio’s A Prairie Home Companion and CBS’ Late Show with David Letterman. She performs vintage American “heart songs” and dance tunes—Stephen Foster and Civil War tunes, Victorian ballroom dance tunes, imported Scots and Irish songs and dance tunes, hymns and spirituals, and ragtime—plus Latin waltzes and tango, World War I-era music, Billie Holiday blues, contemporary Celtic music, and Eastern European klezmer music. Her arrangements honor the historical, improvisational spirit of community music making but also draw on more modern sounds. For more information, see Jacquelineschwab.com.

Music

What unites my diverse repertoire: my unique touch and sound; my own arrangements (except for classical pieces), my experience with the sounds of many genres of traditional music, and the emotion and heart that infuse my playing.
My repertoire includes:
Vintage American music I've recorded for Ken Burns documentaries
Celtic music, including late 18th-c. Scottish fiddle music (my arrangements for piano)
Vintage American music, from Stephen Foster to Scott Joplin, including parlor songs, dance tunes, spirituals, and Tin Pan Alley music
Music of American immigrants from W. and E. Europe, the Caribbean, and South America
Building Bridges--Vintage Music of Latin America: a program of traditional and classical music from Latin and South America
Classical repertoire, including Chopin Nocturnes and Waltzes, Ravel (from Le Tombeau de Couperin), Elgar's Nimrod, and more

Videos

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