Popular Pianist - Alex Hassan in Concert

Richmond's Alex Hassan has been in total immersion 1920s/30s Tin Pan Alley Popular Piano Styles therapy for over 50 years. A pupil of a pupil of a pupil of a pupil of Franz Liszt (well…it SOUNDS impressive?!), he has been a torchbearer for the melodies of between-the-wars Broadway and Hollywood (and European equivalents), devoting himself more specifically to collecting and resurrecting the great “late Romantic with a beat” popular songs that really never had a chance.

His archival collection of [mostly] popular piano solo and vocal sheet music numbers around 50,000 titles, entirely from the above-mentioned period. It is a tribute to those heady musical times that there is still so much left to find.

Alex has performed internationally at such venues as England’s Aldeburgh Festival, Germany's Husum (2007 & 2015 – “Piano Rarities Festival”), Washington DC’s Kennedy Center, the Coolidge Auditorium at the Library of Congress, various New York/Baltimore/Washington night spots, and national ragtime festivals. He recorded prolifically for England’s SHELLWOOD PRODUCTIONS, Los Angeleno label OPERETTA ARCHIVES, and Pennsylvania’s STOMP OFF. He also has produced/annotated several reissues of the virtuoso popular pianists of the 78RPM era, for both Shellwood and Stomp Off, and RIVERMONT, for which he has also recorded as a member of the group, "Three for a Song". This will be his third appearance for the Graif Foundation.

Host or Publisher The Susan A. & Joseph N. Graif Foundation Inc.