Fred Hersch (born October 21, 1955 in Cincinnati, Ohio) is an American jazz pianist and composer. Proclaimed by Vanity Fair magazine, “the most arrestingly innovative pianist in jazz over the last decade or so," five-time Grammy nominee Hersch balances his internationally recognized instrumental skills with significant achievements as a composer, bandleader, and theatrical conceptualist, as well as remaining an in-demand collaborator with other noted bandleaders and vocalists. As a solo pianist (he was the first artist in the 75-year history of New York's legendary Village Vanguard to play week-long engagements as a solo pianist; his second featured run is documented on the 2011 release, Alone at the Vanguard); as leader of a widely praised trio whose album Whirl found its way onto numerous 2010 best-recordings-of-the-year lists; and as the impetus behind the ambitious 2011 production, My Coma Dreams, a full-evening work for 11 instruments, actor/singer and animation/multimedia—Hersch has fully lived up to the approbation of the New York Times who, in a featured Sunday Magazine article, praised him as “singular among the trailblazers of their art, a largely unsung innovator of this borderless, individualistic jazz – a jazz for the 21st century.” He was nominated for two 2011 Grammy Awards for Alone at the Vanguard - for Best Jazz Album and Best Improvised Jazz Solo; these are his fourth and fifth nominations. His newest trio album, the two-CD Alive at the Vanguard, has been garnering wide critical acclaim as one of his best releases in his 30-year recording career. It has been awarded the 2012 Grand Prix du Disque by the Académie Charles Cros in France and it was named one of the Best CDs of 2012 by Downbeat Magazine.

In addition to his more than three-dozen recordings as a leader/co-leader, his numerous awards include a 2003 Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship for composition, and a Grammy® nomination for Best Instrumental Composition, as well as two Grammy® nominations for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance. Hersch has featured himself as either a solo performer or at the helm of varied small ensembles, which in addition to his trio, include a quintet, as well as his "Pocket Orchestra" featuring an unconventional line-up of piano, trumpet, voice and percussion. Hersch is considered to be the most prolific and celebrated solo jazz pianist of his generation. In 2006, Palmetto Records released the solo CD Fred Hersch in Amsterdam: Live at the Bimhuis and 2009 welcomed his eighth solo disc, Fred Hersch Plays Jobim, cited as one of the year's Top Ten jazz releases by NPR and the Wall Street Journal. Alone won the "Coup de Coeur" de l'Académie Charles Cros in France and 2011 also saw Hersch place fourth in the Downbeat Critic's Poll and win as Jazz Pianist of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association. He is nominated again in 2013 for Jazz Pianist of the Year.