Joshua Pearl was born in New York City. He began playing the piano when he was two years old, and started writing songs when he was six. He worked as a musical director for community theater throughout high school and in 1980 he won first place in the Garden State Talent Expo and performed solo at the Garden State Arts Center.
He attended Oberlin College and Conservatory of Music where he studied classical piano with Sedmara Rutstein and composition with Randy Coleman. He received both Bachelor of Music and Bachelor of Arts degrees. In his last year at Oberlin, he met the woman who was to become his wife, artistic muse, and mother of his three children.
From 1989 to 1994 Joshua lived in Kyoto, Japan. While there, he traveled widely and studied a variety of musical cultures including Japanese, Balinese and Indian traditional musics. In 1991 he founded Crosscurrents, a multi-cultural concert series which ran for four successful years under his leadership. During his Japan years, he studied and played with some of the world's best musicians including: koto master Sawako Fukuhara, Indian flute master Hariprasad Churasia, jazz pianist Sadayasu Fuji, and renowned composer John Cage. Over the course of his years in Japan he performed extensively, practiced Zen Buddhism, and lived a life of freedom and exploration. Just before returning to the United States, Joshua was Music Coordinator for the Global Forum of Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders where he received a certificate from Mikhail Gorbachev for helping launch the International Green Cross.
Joshua returned to New York in 1994 with his one year old son in tow where he worked as a keyboardist and rehearsal pianist on Broadway in "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying," and "The Sound of Music." He also performed in countless cabarets and clubs.
In 1997, now the father of two children, Joshua moved to Woodstock, New York. He produced a series of independent records and collaborated with a number of well known recording artists including Kate Pierson of The B-52s and Levon Helm of The Band. During the summers of 2000, 2001 and 2002 he arranged and composed music for productions at Lucille Lortel's White Barn Theater. There he collaborated with June Havoc on a staged memoir version of Vernon Duke's "Sadie Thompson." With director Arthur Storch, he composed an original score for the world premier of Tennessee Williams play "The Day on Which a Man Dies." In 2002 Joshua performed in the premier of his original musical "Courting the Muse," together with Tony Award winner, Lillias White. Shortly after this production, his third child was born.
Over the past three years Joshua has performed at Lincoln Center and New York City's Town Hall, with Peter Schickele (a.k.a. PDQ Bach), and on the public radio show "A Prairie Home Companion." In 2003, he composed the score for "Portraits" at the Union Square Theater (Off Broadway.) He has also released a solo piano CD entitled "Fool for Beauty," and has composed dozens of songs and instrumental pieces for the five musical theater productions currently in development.
Check out the artist's website:
http://www.joshuapearl.comTrack List:
1. You Took Advantage Of Me (Rogers and Hart)
2. Where's The Music (Ellington)
3. Ask Me Now (Monk)
4. These Foolish Things (Marvell, Link and Strachey)
5. Lookin' For My Used To Be (Pearl)
6. Nice Work If You Can Get It (Gershwin)
7. Monk's Mood (Monk)
8. Prelude To A Kiss (Ellington)
9. That Would Only Break My Heart (Pearl)
10. No Moon At All (Evans and Mann)
11. Let Yourself Go (Berlin)
12. You Are Too Beautiful (Rogers and Hart)
13. Misterioso (Monk)
14. The Mooch (Ellington)
15. Medley: Old Cabaret (Pearl)/Nice Work Reprise (Gershwin)/I'm Beg
16. Cowboy Blues (Pearl)
17. Body And Soul (Green)
18. Empty Stage (Pearl)
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