Katy Roberts

Katy Roberts is known for her solo piano performances, her accompanying skills, and for her skills as a composer, arranger and bandleader. She trained in Boston, Mass. at Berklee College of Music in the late ‘70’s and in ’85 obtained a Masters of Music at New England Conservatory. In the 80s, she performed regularly as the solo pianist in hotels in Boston, and led her own groups, often including Alan Dawson, Gene Jackson, Billy Hart, Antonio Hart, Kurtis Rivers and Salim Washington. From 1988-1990 she was a professor at Berklee College of Music. She moved to Paris in 1990. Since then, she has performed in concerts and clubs in and around Paris, in other parts of France and Europe, in Africa and the USA with her own trio, quartet and more recently, her quintet and septet. She has also performed as pianist with Ricky Ford, Sonny Simmons, Rasul Siddik, Oliver Johnson, Black Pyramid and Mra Oma, among others. From 1993-2000, she toured in Europe as the pianist in the Ku-Umba Frank Lacy Quartet. After that, she performed with him in NYC with his big band, Octet and Quintet. She performed with her own quintet at the Maine International film festival (July, 2004) and with her own sextet at the Madagascar Jazz Festival (Oct., 2004.) She performed with the group Apex in July, 2005 at the Zanzibar International Film festival.Recently Katy has recorded and independently produced two CD’s that are: Katy Roberts Septet, The Vibe, released in Jan., 2003, and Katy Roberts Quintet, Live ‡ l’Archipel, released in April, 2004. The latter is now available in FNAC stores throughout France and they are both available on CDbaby.com. Her newest recording, “Katy Roberts Quintet Live at Twins and more” has been released in 2006. Katy is also a professor of Jazz Piano at the Bill Evans Piano Academy in Paris.