American pianist stubs

Mary_Louise_Boehm

Mary Louise Boehm (July 25, 1924 – November 29, 2002) was an American pianist and painter.
A descendant of Joseph Boehm, a piano-maker active in Vienna during the early 19th century, Mary Louise Boehm was born in Sumner, Iowa, and soon proved to be a child prodigy. She studied with Louis Crowder at Iowa State Teachers College (now the University of Northern Iowa) and subsequently with Robert Casadesus and Walter Gieseking.Boehm's repertoire and recorded output was notable for works by American composers such as Amy Beach and Ernest Schelling, who are far from mainstream, even now. She also performed and made premiere recordings of works by several early romantic composers such as John Field, Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Johann Peter Pixis, Ignaz Moscheles and Friedrich Kalkbrenner. Her advocacy introduced a generation of music lovers to these neglected composers. She was also interested in performance on period instruments at a time when this was rare.
From the 1960s she began painting, working in oils, watercolor and inks. While on concert tours in South America she became interested in textiles, which led to her involvement with weaving, textile design and the complicated field of dye and color chemistries. Eventually she chose batik as a painterly textile medium. She studied the traditional Indonesian batik techniques and pioneered modern adaptations, and had major shows in the United States.She married the Dutch violinist Kees Kooper with whom she performed regularly. In 2002 she died in Spain. Her sister Pauline Boehm Haga was also a pianist; the Grand Sonata Op. 112 by Moscheles was recorded by the sisters together.

Jo_Ann_Castle

Jo Ann Castle (born September 3, 1939) is an American honky-tonk pianist, best remembered for appearing on The Lawrence Welk Show. She adopted her stage name from the name of an accordion manufacturer, another instrument she played proficiently. She was often referred to as "Queen of the Honky-Tonk Piano" by Lawrence Welk himself.
Originally introduced to Welk by Joe Feeney in 1959, Castle became a permanent member of the Welk Family, replacing the departing Big Tiny Little. Shortly after joining the Show, Castle married cameraman Dean Hall. They divorced in 1966 after having a daughter. Castle married again in 1968 and had a son and a daughter. Castle left the Welk Show in 1969 and divorced in 1971. Her third marriage, in 1978, ended in 1986.
In the 1990s, Castle performed at the Welk-owned Champagne Theater in Branson, Missouri, as well as making a guest appearance for a show with Jimmy Sturr and His Orchestra on RFD TV.
On September 3, 2011, Castle married her fourth husband, Lin Biviano, who was a trumpet player from Boston.

Randy_Kerber

Randy Kerber (born September 25, 1958) is an American composer, orchestrator and keyboard player, who has had a prolific career in the world of cinema.Kerber was born in Encino, California. He began his first national tour with Bette Midler in 1977 at the age of 19. He was nominated for an Oscar in 1986, along with Quincy Jones and others, for Best Original Score for the motion picture The Color Purple. He was also nominated for a Grammy for his arrangement of "Over the Rainbow" for Barbra Streisand.
As a studio keyboardist, Kerber has worked on over 800 motion pictures including Titanic, A Beautiful Mind, and the first three films of the Harry Potter franchise. The piano in the opening and closing scenes of Forrest Gump, which features a feather floating in the wind, was played by Kerber and keyboardist Randy Waldman.
Kerber has been an orchestrator on over 50 films, including work with Academy Award winner James Horner. He worked with Eric Clapton as keyboardist, orchestrator, and conductor on the 1991 film Rush, and playing on the Grammy Award-winning song "Tears in Heaven".
During his career, Kerber has worked with a wide range of artists including Michael Jackson, Paul Anka, Leonard Cohen, Rickie Lee Jones, A. R. Rahman, Whitney Houston, Michael Bolton, Rod Stewart, B.B. King, Bill Medley, Annie Lennox, Art Garfunkel, José Feliciano, Anastacia, Celine Dion, Natalie Cole, Al Jarreau, Ray Charles, Neil Diamond, Elisa, Julio Iglesias, Barry Manilow, Don Ellis, Ricky Martin, Bette Midler, Corey Hart, Eric Burdon, Kenny Rogers, Donna Summer, George Benson, Diana Ross, Marta Sanchez, Frank Sinatra, Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Dionne Warwick; and groups including Air Supply, America, Def Leppard, The Temptations, Manhattan Transfer, Lisa Stansfield, and The Three Degrees.
Kerber also performed piano solos on Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, Robert Zemeckis' Flight, and Steven Soderbergh's Behind the Candelabra for which he also trained Michael Douglas on the piano. Kerber also worked closely with actors Jason Schwartzman (for his role in the Disney film Saving Mr. Banks), Zoe Saldana for her turn as Nina Simone in the biopic Nina, and Ryan Gosling for his role of Sebastian in La La Land.
The 2016 Japanese PlayStation 4 role-playing game I Am Setsuna features a score performed almost entirely on solo piano by Kerber. In the spring of 2020 Kerber was a featured cast member and co-composer in the Netflix series The Eddy.