The Ballad of Long-Term Survivor Fred Hersch

An image from “The Ballad of Fred Hersch” Courtesy of Swell Cinema

The jazz pianist and AIDS spokesperson survived a two-month coma in 2008. Today, he’s profiled in a new film.

November 7, 2016

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Acclaimed jazz pianist Fred Hersch, a long-term survivor and a 2015 POZ 100 cover model, is the subject of a documentary, The Ballad of Fred Hersch. The movie has been screening across the country at film festivals, including an upcoming showing, Saturday, November 12, in New York City.


The movie’s website, FredHerschFilm.com, includes the following synopsis:

The Ballad of Fred Hersch is an intimate portrait of one of today’s foremost jazz pianists. With more than 30 albums and 8 Grammy nominations under his belt, Hersch is internationally revered in jazz circles as a master improviser. A maverick in music and in life, he was the first jazz musician to come out as gay and HIV-positive in the early 1990s, and he miraculously survived a two-month AIDS-related coma in 2008. Both exacting and full of love, our unfettered cameras capture Hersch’s creative process as he does double duty as a workaday jazzman and first-time theater producer—turning his tragedies into triumphal art.

 
The film is directed and produced by Charlotte Lagard and Carrie Lozano, who say they initially planned to focus on Hersch’s theatrical production of My Coma Dreams, inspired by his experiences surviving a two-month AIDS-related coma in 2008. But as they worked with Hersch they expanded the scope of the film.


In December 2015, Hersch appeared on the cover of POZ; he was one of that year’s POZ 100, which celebrated long-term survivors. For more, read his POZ Q&A, titled “Music in Action,” and “The POZ 100: Celebrating Long-Term Survivors.”

Visit the film’s website and Hersch’s Facebook page for more info and updates on future screenings.

  

An advertisement for the documentaryCourtesy of Swell Cinema

Fred Hersch on the December 2015 cover of POZ

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