Green Dream is the new release by pianist and educator Jeremy Manasia. Jeremy said that of his three releases “I truly believe in the integrity of Green Dream” and that the 12 compositions on the CD were written “out of sincerity, with a love for expressing emotion through sound.”
A native of Staten Island NY, Jeremy began playing piano at the age of 7, after receiving a birthday gift from his godmother for a year of piano lessons. The lessons continued, and in 1985 he was accepted to the LaGuardia HS for Performing Arts. In his second year of high school he was placed in a jazz history course taught by Justin DiCioccio. Being exposed to jazz like this would prove to forever alter his life. Within two years he would perform at Carnegie Hall and Avery Fischer Hall with the NY All City Jazz Band and the McDonalds Tri State Jazz Ensemble, featuring artists such as Red Rodney, Arnie Lawrence, Steve Turre, and bandmates including Greg Hutchinson, Abraham Burton, Walter Blanding and Eric McPherson.
In 1989, Jeremy attended the Manhattan School of Music, where he was introduced to a larger world of music and jazz through his teachers Harold Danko and Gary Dial. During this time he toured with the Ryan Kisor Quintet which featured, among others, Chris Potter, Ari Ambrose, and Dwayne Burno.
After college Jeremy began regularly attending classes with jazz great Barry Harris, who connected him with the Royal Conservatory of Den Haag, where he received his masters degree and studied with Dutch jazz legend Franz Elsan. While in the Netherlands, he toured all over Europe and played on his first recording, the Deep, with the band Five Up High.
In 1997, Jeremy returned to NYC to study more with Chris Anderson and Harry Whitaker. He soon become a regular on the NYC jazz circuit, where he has been ever since. Jeremy has performed with Jimmy Cobb, Peter Bernstein, Javon Jackson, Wayne Esscoffrey, Joe Magnarelli, Nneena Freelon, Diane Schur, and has recorded with the Charles Owens Quartet, the Greg Glassman/Stacy Dillard Quintet, David Gibson, John Boutte, Jane Monheit, and many others.
Jeremy has been a finalist in the Thelonious Monk Competition, the Great American Jazz Piano Competition, and the American Pianists Association Jazz Piano Competition.
Jeremy is on faculty at the Manhattan School of Music, and has won a Presidential Scholars award, numerous Downbeat Student Music awards and three Charles Mingus Competition awards for his teaching.