ERIC HIRSH, HE/HIM (COMPOSER), is a jazz pianist and composer living in Durham, NC, where he creates music as leader of his own jazz quartet, as co-director of Afro-Cuban ensemble Orquesta GarDel, and as a member of hip hop group The Beast. His debut album as bandleader, Distillation, was released in 2018. Hirsh is a 2012 recipient of the North Carolina Arts Council Composer Fellowship and a four-time winner of the Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Award. He has been in residence at the Kennedy Center’s Betty Carter Jazz Ahead, Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute, and the School for Improvisational Music.