Don Shirley was born Donald Waklbridge Shirley, 29 January 1927, Kingston, Jamaica. His first teacher was his mother. He began playing piano at age of 2-1/2 and made his first public performance at the age of 3. At the age of nine he was invited to study theory with Mittolovski at the Leningrad Conservatory of Music, and he later studied with famous organist "Conrad Bernier" and studied advanced composition with both Bernier and Dr.Thaddeus Jones at Catholic University of America in Washington D. C.

He made his concert debut at the age of 18 with the Boston Pops June 25, l945, with "Dean Dixon" as guest conductor playing the Tchaikovsky B-flat minor concerto. In l946 his first major composition was performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

In l949 he received an invitation from the Haitian government to play at the Exposition International du Bi-Centenaire De Port-au-Prince followed by a request from Archbishop Le Goise and President Estime for a repeat performance the following week.

At Arthur Fiedler's invitation he appeared with the Boston Pops in Chicago in June 1954. He performed the Tchaikovsky in the fall of 1968 with the Detroit Symphony. He has appeared as soloist with the Detroit Symphony, the Chicago Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the NBC Symphony, and the National Symphony Orchestra Washington to name only a few. Including his appearances with the trio, he averaged some 95 concerts a year.

He has written symphonies performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic, and has composed four organ symphonies, numerous pieces for piano, two string quartets, and a piano concerto. He played as soloist with the orchestra at Milan's La Scala opera house in a program dedicated to Gershwin's music. Only two other pianists have performed there as soloists — Rubinstein and Richter.

He holds a Doctorate of Music, Doctorate of Psychology (University of Chicago, Phi Beta Kappa), and Doctorate in Liturgical Arts. He speaks eight languages fluently, and is considered an expert painter as well.

He abandoned the piano as a career while quite young, and it was while in Chicago as a psychologist that Don "tripped" back into a musical career. He was given a grant to study the relationship, if any, between music and juvenile crime wave which had suddenly broken out in the early l950's. Working in a small club there, he used his knowledge and skill to perform experiments in sound, whereby he proved that certain tonal combinations affected the audience's reactions. No one in the audience knew of his experiment, or that students had been planted among them to gauge their reactions. But Don Shirley the pianist became a sensation.

It is impossible to categorize Don Shirley's music. It is possible to say that as an arranger-composer he treats each piece of music as a new composition, not just an arrangement. Don plays Standards in a non-standard way. He is a virtuoso, playing everything from show tunes, to ballads, to his personal arrangements of Negro spirituals, to jazz, and always with the overtone of a classically-trained musician who has utmost respect for the music he is playing.

His rendition of Cole Porter's "Love For Sale" is the most sensitive production of that poignant song, as well as the most exciting that I have ever heard. The key to the reason why Don is such an exciting player is that he plays to a sense of truth about each song he does; he goes right to the heart of the song and the listener immediately reacts, saying to himself, "Yes, that is the way that song should be played!" His sense of shading, phrasing, and balance with his piano is equal to the sense that Billie Holiday is renowned for with her voice.

Appearances in New York followed, notably at *"Basin Street East", where Duke Ellington first heard him. Here started their warm friendship which was highlighted by Don's performance in l955 of the premiere of Duke's Piano Concerto at Carnegie Hall with the NBC Symphony of the Air. An appearance on the Arthur Godfrey Show launched his career nationwide.

He has composed 3 symphonies, two piano concerti, a cello concerto, three string quartets, a one-act opera, works for organ, piano and violin, a symphonic tone poem based on Finnegan's Wake and a set of "Variations" on the legend of Orpheus in the Underworld.

Today he is alive and well and performing in New York. He presently has 14 CDs. During the 1950s and 60s he cut some 16 albums for Cadence Records.

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