Ken Bichel

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Ken Bichel (born 1945) is an American pianist, composer, conductor, singer, and synthesizer musician. He grew up in Detroit and studied at Juilliard, earning a master’s degree in piano performance in 1969. There he met Gershon Kingsley and Robert Moog and helped form the First Moog Quartet, making him a leading synthesizer figure in New York’s recording scene.

Though classically trained, Bichel spent much of his career playing jazz, rock, and other contemporary styles on piano and synthesizer. In the early 1970s he joined the band Stories, recording on three albums before they broke up in 1973. He also worked on Broadway as a musical director for Boccaccio (1975) and as an actor-musician in I Love My Wife (1977), for which he won the Drama Desk Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. He later served as assistant conductor and pianist for Working (1978).

In the 1970s Bichel worked as a freelance session musician, contributing on synthesizer or piano to many projects. His playing appears on CDs by Average White Band (Self-titled, 1974; Soul Searching, 1976), Judy Collins’ Judith (1975), and Chaka Khan’s Chaka Khan Chaka (1978). He also sang backup on Billy Joel’s hit “Just the Way You Are.” His other recording credits include Irene Cara, Placido Domingo, Aretha Franklin, Peggy Lee, Cindy Bullens, Maureen McGovern, Jane Olivor, Luciano Pavarotti, Carly Simon, Paul Simon, and Stevie Wonder. In 1973 he wrote the music for CBS’s Match Game.

As a concert artist, Bichel has performed at major venues worldwide, including La Scala in Milan, the American Music Festival in Geneva, London for the Duchess of Kent, Hong Kong’s bicentennial celebration, and Munich with the Bavarian Radio Orchestra, as well as multiple appearances at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center.

He has appeared on television programs such as The Tonight Show, David Letterman, the Dick Cavett Show, Saturday Night Live, American Bandstand, Regis Philbin, and Rosie O’Donnell. He also acted in Kinsey, Marvin’s Room, A Family Thing, and had a cameo in Woody Allen’s Broadway Danny Rose, and won an Emmy for his television music work.

Today Bichel lives with his wife in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where he continues composing for solo performances and for contemporary classical ensembles. In 2009 the couple became certified teaching Ishayas teaching monks of Ascension of the Bright Path.