Get on my email list to stay informed on what’s happening!

Kirk Kadish is a composer/producer/keyboardist living and working in Rapid City, South Dakota. He has lived a life immersed in music, beginning when he was just old enough to clamber down the stairs to go exploring on the old upright piano in the basement of his Melvindale, Michigan home. He began formal piano lessons at age 7, following the Royal Conservatory of Music of Toronto curriculum and testing regularly across the Detroit River in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. He performed in his high school choir and annual musical productions, where he met his wife of 41 years, Veronica. Then, it was on to The University of Michigan School of Music at Ann Arbor, where he graduated magna cum laude in 1977 with a bachelor’s degree in Music Theory. He spent the winter of ‘77-78 in Cleveland where he received a certificate in Piano Tuning & Technology from the Perkins’ School. He still proudly tunes and maintains his grand piano personally to this day.

The next decade found him on the road with The Murphys, a family band from Down Under, a number of years living, performing, & recording in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and then a very interesting year in Nashville where his son Nicholas, now 31, was born. Seeking the most fruitful way to raise a family and still make music, he enjoyed a fulfilling career in Norfolk, Virginia and Washington, DC as a military musician at The Armed Forces School Of Music, where he was the piano instructor for all incoming Army, Navy, and Marine pianists from 1990 through 1994, and then with The United States Army Field Band, stationed at Fort George G. Meade, touring the world, performing with many of the world’s greatest musicians, and ultimately serving his country for nearly 24 years. He retired as a Sergeant Major in 2013.

During his military career he pursued and obtained his master’s degree, summa cum laude, in Jazz Piano Performance from Towson University in Baltimore, Maryland and produced his first four original solo albums: the experimental in here (1993); Drift, an homage to ambient pioneer, Harold Budd and CNET’s Editors’ Choice in 2004; the globally broadcast smooth jazz album, Tradewinds, (2005); and an ambient tribute to jazz pianist, Bill Evans, entitled Still Bill (2012). In 2009, he and long-time Australian collaborator, Janice Slater, released the meditational album, Arterial Flow. In collaboration with Kirk’s dear friend from the early Santa Fe days, singer/songwriter/producer/world traveler, Jack Clift, Kirk and Jan released Waterdance (2013).

Kirk returned to Santa Fe after retiring and continued to perform regionally as well as produce solo works and collaborate with composers from around the globe. Albums released since then include the smoothly jazzy By The Numbers (2014); Peace Movements (2015); a jazz piano trio album, Still Here, by Kadish, Gagan, & Bartlit, which won the award for Best Jazz CD of 2016 from The New Mexico Music Awards; the double-album, Imperturbable Skies (2018), the worldly Dekhte Dekhte and the quite uncategorizable Dig That Chick (both in 2020). In 2022 he and his family moved to the Black Hills of South Dakota where he released the topical Peace Movements (2023). His writing and performing embraces, spans, and transcends any single style. He is endlessly fascinated with the process of organizing sound in ways that excite and inspire him, his many collaborators, and his audiences. He shrugs off any restraints or conventions that would hinder his freedom in exploring the boundaries of our musical world. He hopes you will find great pleasure and satisfaction in sharing and joining in his journey and making it a part of your own.