HERSHEY FELDER: THE PIANO & ME

Hershey Felder is currently the Artistic Director of FirenzeOnStage, directing Teatro Niccolini in Florence, Italy, (Florence’s oldest theatre, 1648) at the left wing of Florence’s historic Duomo. Mr. Felder opened the 2024-25 season with film and stage superstar Jeff Goldblum, and presented international superstars such as Helen Mirren, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Boris Giltburg, Taylor Hackford, Tony winners Santino Fontana, Jenn Colella, the cast of the film of the Sound of Music and many more. For the 2025-26 season, Felder presented the Italian premiere of Caligula the Final Cut, with the presence of its superstars, Malcolm McDowell and Helen Mirren in a discussion with the audience. The season continues with stars of stage, screen, opera and classical music. American Theatre Magazine has said, “Hershey Felder, actor, Steinway Concert Artist and theatrical creator is in a category all his own.” Following 28 years of continuous stage productions and more than 6,000 live performances throughout the U.S. and abroad, Felder created Live from Florence, An Arts Broadcasting Company, based in Florence, Italy, which has produced 18 theatrical films to date. They include the recently-released Noble Genius—Chopin& Liszt; The Assembly; Violetta, the story of Verdi’s Traviata; Dante and Beatrice; Mozart and Figaro in Vienna; the world premiere musicals Nicholas, Anna & Sergei; the story of Sergei Rachmaninoff; Puccini, the story of famed opera composer Giacomo Puccini; Before Fiddler, a musical story about writer Sholem Aleichem; Great American Songs and the Stories Behind Them, Leonard Bernstein and the Israel Philharmonic, a documentary, and the popular Musical Tales in the Venetian Jewish Ghetto. Two seasons of programming are currently available at hersheyfelder.net with season three being launched in spring of 2026. Upcoming films include The 60th anniversary documentary story of The Sound of Music film; The Joe Alterman Project featuring the story of Jazz pianist Joe Alterman and Tender Art, the story of George Sand, Eugène Delacroix and Fryderyk Chopin. Felder has given performances of his solo theatre productions at some of the world’s most prestigious theatres and has consistently broken box office records. His shows include George Gershwin Alone (Broadway’s Helen Hayes Theatre, West End’s Duchess Theatre); Monsieur Chopin; Beethoven; Maestro (Leonard Bernstein); Franz Liszt in Musik, Lincoln: An American Story, Hershey Felder as Irving Berlin, Our Great Tchaikovsky, and A Paris Love Story, (Debussy) Monsieur Chopin and Rachmaninoff and the Tsar. Season 2024 saw the world premiere of Rachmaninoff and the Tsar, as composer-pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff opposite Jonathan Silvestri as Tsar Nicholas II. His compositions and recordings include Aliyah, Concerto for Piano and Orchestra; Fairytale, a musical; Les Anges de Paris, Suite for Violin and Piano; Song Settings; Saltimbanques for Piano and Orchestra; Etudes Thematiques for Piano; An American Story for Actor and Orchestra, and the opera Il Quarto Uomo that premiered in Fiesole, Italy in the summer of 2023 with the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. Felder is the adaptor, director, and designer for the internationally performed play-with-music The Pianist of Willesden Lane with Steinway artist Mona Golabek; producer and designer for the musical Louis and Keely: ‘Live’ at the Sahara, directed by Taylor Hackford; and writer and director for Flying Solo, featuring opera legend Nathan Gunn. Felder has operated a full-service production company since 2001. He has been a scholar-in- residence at Harvard University’s Department of Music and is married to Rt. Hn. Kim Campbell. Hershey currently resides in Florence where he is the director of a full service film production studio, Monte Acuto Arti, in Bagno a Ripoli.

Trevor Hay (Stage Manager) directed the world premieres of An American Story for Actor and Orchestra, Abe Lincoln’s Piano, Hershey Felder as Franz Liszt in Musik, Hershey Felder as Irving Berlin, Our Great Tchaikovsky and A Paris Love Story. He is associate director for Mona Golabek’s The Pianist of Willesden Lane, George Gershwin Alone and Maestro. Former member of the historic Old Globe Theatre in San Diego where, at the age of nine, his first position was selling Old Globe memorabilia. Over the next 32 years, Mr. Hay went on to various aspects of production on more than 80 presentations.

Jerry Patch (Dramaturg) served as dramaturg on more than 150 new plays, including the world premieres of Abundance, Freedomland, Golden Child, Intimate Apparel, Search and Destroy, Three Days of Rain, Ruined and Wit. He was the founding project director for South Coast Repertory’s Pacific Playwrights Festival and artistic director of the theatre program of Sundance Institute. A professor of theatre and film, he was consulting dramaturg for Roundabout Theatre Company (New York) for nearly a decade and resident artistic director at The Old Globe in San Diego. He is now artistic consultant for Manhattan Theatre Club, where he served more than a decade as Director of Artistic Development, and is resident dramaturg at SCR.

Erik Carstensen (Sound Design/Production Management) has worked for Eighty-Eight Entertainment since 2008. He has served as sound designer on Hershey Felder as Irving Berlin, Our Great Tchaikovsky, A Paris Love Story, Maestro, Louis and Keely “Live” at the Sahara, An American Story, Beethoven As I Knew Him (Ovation Award winner), The Pianist of Willesden Lane (Ovation Award nomination), and numerous other productions. Formerly, he was the master sound technician at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego and was production engineer on more than 60 productions.

Chris Rynne (Lighting Design) is a Lighting and Scenery Designer for theatre, opera, museum exhibitions and architectural features. His theatrical design work has been seen in productions around the country, including The Old Globe, San Diego Repertory Theatre, San Diego Opera, Cygnet Theatre, Pasadena Playhouse, Madison Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Michigan Opera Theatre, Hartford Stage, Geffen Playhouse, Laguna Playhouse, Berkeley Repertory Theatre and Off-Broadway. He has been responsible for lighting a number of independent touring theatrical productions that have played across the United States as well as in London, Paris and Tel Aviv. In addition to his lighting design work, Rynne also specifies theatrical, entertainment and architectural control systems for theatres, houses of worship, hospitality, theme parks, schools, museums and architainment features. He is a member of USA829.

Stefano Decarli (Video Design) born in Florence in 1983, is an Italian filmmaker, editor, and producer. After graduating in 2010 in Agricultural Sciences and Sustainable Rural Development from the University of Florence, he worked in Iraq for two years for the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, coordinating international development and reconstruction programs in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of State. At the same time, he began his professional career in visual communication, specifically in photography and video production, which then became his main profession. Since then, he has been working across Italy and Europe on multimedia content, feature films, live theater shows, music videos, and corporate videos. Starting in 2020, he has filmed, co-directed, and edited shows, movies and documentaries in collaboration with renowned pianist, actor, director and producer Hershey Felder. In 2023 he worked together with American director Madison Kinsella on a short documentary about a group of Ukraine refugees in Italy, A Castle for Kyiv. The same year he also collaborated with Canadian director Jennifer Baichwal on the impact website insights following the 2022 documentary Into The Weeds. He’s also a professor of Multimedia Language at ISIA Firenze, the first university-level public institution for Design education in Italy.

Tammy Globerman (Associate Producer) Based in Los Angeles, Globerman joined the Hershey Felder Presents team in the summer of 2020. She worked with Hershey on his earlier projects in the late 1990’s and 2000’s before working with talent agencies specializing in below-the-line talent for film and television. After taking some time off to be with her two children, she is excited to be working again with Hershey and his team.