Lenore Raphael

Who is Lenore Raphael?

Lenore Raphael is a jazz pianist and educator heavily influenced by Oscar Peterson, Bill Evans and George Shearing.

Raphael studied classical music at the High School of Music & Art in Manhattan, going on to New York University where she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in music. As a teenage prodigy, she performed in a classical concert at Carnegie Hall. She gave up a career as a music teacher and switched to playing jazz professionally after hearing Oscar Peterson in concert.

She studied jazz piano under Barry Harris and Mike Longo.

She has performed with Lionel Hampton, Ken Peplowski, Illinois Jacquet and Clark Terry .

A composer as well as performer, her tribute tune to Oscar Peterson following his death premièred at a memorial concert for Peterson at the International Association for Jazz Convention in Toronto. Her compositions also include the jazz standard Johnny Jazz.

Lenore usually records with bassist Hilliard Greene and drummer Rudy Lawless.

She has taught piano throughout her career, and with the assistance of a string of long-established jazz musicians put together a program for elementary school students to teach them the history of jazz.