Richard Kaczynski took up keyboards at age four when his older sister began piano
lessons. When he realized, around age 12, that he could pick and choose the music
he would like to play, he advanced quickly from Elton John onto a quest for more
challenging music...thus discovering progressive rock. ELP's debut album
demonstrated to him how a band could combine classical and jazz sensibilities into a
style that nevertheless retained the power and urgency of rock. Under this impetus, he
branched out into organ, electric piano, and analog synthesizer in his teens, a time
when the digital instruments of today were just a dream. When MIDI finally appeared in
1984, he wrote his own computer programs to take advantage of this new technology.Although he pursued higher education in psychology and statistics--completing his Ph.D. in 1993--he continued to study, perform and write complex music. Over the years, his influences spanned popular music (Yes, Queen), classical (Bartok, Mussorgsky, Ginastera, Rachmaninoff, Beethoven, Stravinsky), ragtime/stride/boogie (Scott Joplin, Fats Waller, Meade Lux Lewis, Albert Ammons) and jazz (Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett).
With the help of his wife, Page, Richard has recently acknowledged his roots by contributing to a series of tribute albums to some of his favorite progressive bands, all on the Mellow Records label. These include: