At a time when most people are just beginning to hit their stride, Sam Post already has a long list of accomplishments to his name and he has barely broken his first thirty years. As an award-winning classical pianist and composer Sam has performed in many of our nation’s major concert venues, and he has worked with such great virtuosos as Yo-Yo Ma and Renee Fleming.
Post co-composed “Sketches from Kazakhstan” with Karshyga Akhmedyarov. The work was commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony, and premiered as a string quartet, in February 2017, as part of their chamber music series. It was performed again that December, in a chamber symphony adaptation at SoundBox in San Francisco under the baton of Christian Reif.
But this isn’t The Symphonic Times, after all—for it is Sam’s addiction to ragtime that occasions this feature in TST. In the album notes for his latest CD, titled Dizzy Days, Sam recounts suddenly and randomly discovering ragtime several years ago and he was especially influenced by William McNally. Both Post and McNally have been influenced by the work of William Bolcom. On the CD, Sam has infused his own improvisational spirit into Bolcom’s “Graceful Ghost” that has become “essential in my approach to this music,” Post would add.
Sam’s obsession with ragtime has driven several years of study and composition and, in his words, “I’m a c
