| Rob Schneiderman | |||||||||
| Background: | Jazz pianist | ||||||||
| Birth Name: | Robert Roland Schneiderman | ||||||||
| Birth Date: | 21 June 1957 | ||||||||
| Birth Place: | Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. | ||||||||
| Instrument: | piano | ||||||||
| Genre: | Jazz, bebop, hard bop, post-bop | ||||||||
| Occupation: | Musician, educator, composer, mathematician | ||||||||
| Years Active: | 1973–present | ||||||||
| Module: |
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Robert Roland "Rob" Schneiderman (born June 21, 1957) is an American jazz pianist who also works as a professor of mathematics at Lehman College of the City University of New York, where he specializes in geometric topology.[1]
Schneiderman's professional jazz career began in San Diego from about age 16, when he played piano for visiting soloists such as Eddie Harris, Sonny Stitt, Harold Land, Charles McPherson and Peter Sprague.[2] He continued to collaborate intermittently with Harris, until the latter's death in 1996, and with McPherson. In 1982, Schneiderman moved to New York, where he performed and toured with such musicians as J.J. Johnson, Chet Baker, Art Farmer, Clifford Jordan, James Moody and Zoot Sims. A performance fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1987 featured Schneiderman with George Coleman, Jimmy Heath, Claudio Roditi, and Slide Hampton.[3] The collaboration with Slide Hampton resulted in his debut album New Outlook, the first of ten recordings to date as a leader for the Reservoir music label.[4]
His most recent release, entitled Tone Twister, is a collaboration with Brian Lynch on trumpet and Ralph Moore on tenor saxophone. The album features Gerald L. Cannon on bass and Pete Van Nostrand on drums. Schneiderman has also played as sidemen for Billy Higgins, Rufus Reid, Brian Lynch, Ralph Moore, Peter Washington, Lewis Nash, Akira Tana, Billy Hart, Gary Smulyan and Ben Riley.
As a jazz educator, he has been in residence at the Stanford Jazz Workshop.[5] He was previously an adjunct professor in the jazz departments of the William Paterson University (with Rufus Reid) and Queens College (with Jimmy Heath). He has also been on the faculty of the Jazzschool in Berkeley, California.[2]
Schneiderman graduated with a B.A. in mathematics from City College of New York in 1994. He received his Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley in 2001 under the supervision of Robion Kirby. In 2006, Schneiderman became an assistant professor at the Department of Mathematics Lehman College after stints at the University of California, San Diego, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University, and at the University of Pennsylvania. From 2013, he has been an associate professor at Lehman College.[6] He has also served as chair of the Mathematics Department since 2019.[1]
Schneiderman also actively works at the interface of music and mathematics.[7] [8] [9] [10]
with Eddie Harris
with J.J. Johnson
with Brian Lynch
with Rufus Reid and Harold Land
with Akira Tana and Rufus Reid