Pianist/composer Carmen Staaf is a rising force in the New York City and global music scenes. She has performed and recorded with some of the most influential and important musicians of our era. Currently, she is the pianist and musical director for NEA Jazz Master Dee Dee Bridgewater. Her past major performances have included the Playboy Jazz Festival in a two-piano setting with the legendary Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter, Jazz at Lincoln Center with Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, and the Kennedy Center alongside Kenny Barron and Fred Hersch. She has been heard at the Village Vanguard, Blue Note, SFJazz, and major jazz festivals around the world, including the Newport, Monterey, Montreux, and North Sea Jazz festivals, among many others.

“Carmen Staaf is a consummate jazz pianist with equal talent in composition, orchestration and arranging.... She very much displays a complete knowledge of the history of her instrument but more importantly Carmen is constantly reaching beyond history and is not afraid to go into the unknown and challenge herself at every moment. A bright future awaits her." – Herbie Hancock