At the age of nine, Jordan Rudess entered the prestigious Juilliard School of Music for classical piano training. By nineteen, he began to include the rapidly developing world of synthesizers in his recordings and performances. Today, Jordan is a recording artist, composer, producer and performer.
Voted Best New Talent in the 1994 Keyboard Magazine Readers Poll Keyboardist category after the release of his solo album, "Listen," Jordan is the newest member of the group Dream Theater. Jordan has played with guitarist Steve Morse and the legendary Dixie Dregs. He has recorded and toured with guitarist Vinnie Moore, written songs for, and recorded, with singer Annie Haslam (Renaissance), and has recorded tracks with David Bowie. Additionally, he has toured internationally with fellow keyboardist Jan Hammer and legendary drummer Tony Williams, has appeared in concert with Enrique Iglesias, and regularly performs and records with Grammy award winners, the Paul Winter Consort. His scoring can be heard with International Magician of The Year winner, Jeff McBride.
Jordan formed a two piece "power duo" with Dregs drummer Rod Morgenstein after joining him in the Dregs. The project, dubbed the Rudess Morgenstein Project (RMP), is a high powered progressive rock duo of keyboards and drums. Their CD was released by Domo Records worldwide.
Jordan can be heard along with Keith Emerson, Rick Wakeman and Patrick Moraz, playing Chopin's Revolutionary Etude on 'Steinway to Heaven', a Magna Carta release, featuring rock Keyboard virtuosos playing piano classics. Before joining Dream Theater in January 1999, Jordan connected with John Petrucci and Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater, bassist Tony Levin of King Crimson and Peter Gabriel notoriety, and recorded two albums with "Liquid Tension Experiment." He can be heard on two performances within "Encores Legends and Paradox" with drummer Simon Phillips, Violinist Jerry Goodman and Producer Robert Berry. These releases are also on the Magna Carta label. In October 2001, Jordan released his rock solo album entitled Feeding the Wheel on the Magna Carta label. It features guest musicians Terry Bozzio on drums, Billy Sheehan on Bass, guitarists Steve Morse and John Petrucci, Vocalist Barry Carl, Violinist Mark Wood and Eugene Freisen o.
Dream Theater's double album, entitled Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, was released worldwide in January 2002, which followed their previous studio release, the highly acclaimed "Scenes From a Memory." Six Degrees is available in stores now, from the Elektra Entertainment Group.
The New York performance of Scenes from a Memory, performed at the Roseland Ballroom is available through Elektra Entertainment on DVD, and is entitled "Metropolis 2000 Scenes from New York". It is also released as a triple CD set format entitled "Live Scenes from New York." In the wake of the album's release, Dream Theater embarked on the World Tourbulance world tour.
Jordan recorded keyboard tracks for David Bowie's album entitled Heathen which was released on David's own Iso Records in June 2002. Jordan's solo album 4NYC was released in April of 2002 and is dedicated to New York. It is released on Magna Carta Records. The album is a recording of a concert that took place on September 25th, as well as studio recordings that took place right after the tragedies of September 11th 2001. Jordan and his wife Danielle Rudess produced the solo concert and raised $12,000 for the American Red Cross.
In the summer of 2003, Jordan toured with Dream Theater around the US with Queensryche and Fates Warning during the lead up to the release of the bands next album.
In the fall of 2003, Jordan released his third studio album with Dream Theater, Train Of Thought. Dream Theater's 2004 world tour culminated in Japan where they filmed a live show at Budakon for a concert DVD release. That summer, Dream Theater toured with the band YES throughout the United States.
In August of 2004, Jordan's newest rock solo album, Rhythm of Time, was released on Magna Carta Records and featured Rod Morgenstein on drums, guitarists Joe Satriani, Steve Morse, Vinnie Moore, Greg Howe and Daniel J; Bassist Dave Larue , and guest vocals by Kip Winger. An Evening with John Petrucci and Jordan Rudess, a live concert CD which was originally released on Petrucci's Sound Mind label was just re-released internationally on Steve Vai's Favored Nations label.
Jordan has two books that have recently been released: Total Keyboard Wizardry, a keyboard instructional book, was released in July 2004 by Cherry Lane/Hal Leonard publishers. In addition, Dream Theater's long-awaited keyboard anthology featuring DT's strongest keyboard compositions expertly transcribed by Jordan's transcriber Chris Romero, was also released last summer 2004 and is distributed by Warner Bros.
In Early 2005, Jordan teamed up with Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree and Israeli star Aviv Geffen to do an East Coast run as a three piece performing the music of Blackfield. They made a stop at XM radio to do a live set and their performance can be heard frequently on air.
Later in 2005, Jordan released his fourth studio album with Dream Theater entitled "Octavarium". The album led the band into an 11 month tour which rounded up on April 1st, 2006 at New York's Radio City Music Hall. The concert featured Dream Theater performing with a full symphony orchestra, under the direction of Jamshied Sharifi.
2006 also saw the release of Jordan's newest instructional DVD, "Keyboard Madness", and "Keyfest 2004 LIVE" DVD which are distributed through the JordanRudess.com online store.
On March 15th, 2006 Jordan took part in Katie Couric's annual benefit for the Jay Monohan Center of Gastrointestinal health. The evening was billed as Hollywood Meets Motown and held in NYC at the Waldorf Astoria. Jordan shared the stage with Sting, James Taylor, Elvis Costello and John Legend as well as many others!
On June 5th 2007 Dream Theater released their album Systematic Chaos for Roadrunner records. This was a big release for the boys, as it is the first album on Roadrunner. Since the release, Jordan has been on the road extensively with the "Chaos in Motion" tour in the US, Europe, Asia, Australia and South America.
Sept 12th saw the release of Jordan's most recent solo CD on Magna Carta Records entitled "The Road Home". This finds Jordan deeply immersed in his passion for progressive rock music. For this album he decided to cover a handful of the prog rock classics that inspired him the most. ELP, Genesis, YES, Gentle Giant, and King Crimson all get the full on Rudess treatment.
The "Chaos in Motion" tour continues this summer in the US, Mexico and Canada as Dream Theater embarks on the premier of their very own "Progressive Nation" tour. Along with them will be Opeth, Between The Buried And Me as well as the band Three.
Throughout his career, Jordan has immersed himself in the education of music through the web, by providing video and notation-based lessons in his Online Conservatory and e-magazine, Accent. Jordan continues to explore various possibilities that new technologies bring, such as the ability to offer rare recordings of his music through an online download store on his website, and his use of the new Haken Audio "fretless keyboard" Continuum.
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