She is a pianist, harpsichordist and baseball researcher born Zita Carnovsky who was raised in New York City.
She studied for her degrees at the Manhattan School of Music and spent the first 15 years of her professional career working in her local area as a recitalist, soloist and orchestral member. In 1960/1 she gave solo performances with the Omaha Symphony and the New York Philharmonic and later worked with the Martha Graham Dance Company, the Orchestra Da Camara of Long Island and the New Jersey Symphony.
She also had a friendship with the jazz musician John Coltrane and wrote the liner notes on Coltrane Jazz, held a staff position at the Annual Composers Conference in Vermont for nearly a decade and was the pianist on Bugs and Daffy’s Carnival of the Animals from 1976.
In 1979 she became a member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and remained with them until her retirement in 2000. Acclaimed for her solo and chamber performances she was also a member of the Philharmonic New Music Group and the Rochelle Abramson Ensemble .
No stranger to the recording studio she appeared many times in recordings with the LA Philharmonic as well as Sonatas by Beethoven, Hindemith and Heiden by John Cerminaro, Trumpet Sonatas by Thomas Stevens, Music of Hale Smith by Hale Smith, Smithsonian Folkways American Roots Collection and her own Music for Piano by Michael DeAik which was released in 2001.
Outside of music her other love is baseball and she was a team pitcher when she was young. She gave playing up when her musical career took off but since retiring she has relocated to Tampa, Florida, where she is an active member of the Society for American Baseball Research. This has seen her writing biographies of players and giving detailed presentations such as “…About Pitching Coaches…”.
Sources:
- http://www.bravo-la.com/Zita_Carno.htm
- http://www.sabr.org/sabr.cfm?a=cms,c,1284,34,0
- http://bioproj.sabr.org/bioproj.cfm?a=w&w=v&biogID=244
- http://music.msn.com/music/artist/zita-carno/
- http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/B000003J64/thehornplayersre
- http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0138877/
- http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:avfqxqtgldje~T4
- http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=41:16405~T3
- http://www.allaboutjazz.com/coltrane/linernotes_01.htm
- http://www.palosverdes.com/sbcms/web8384.htm
- http://forward.com/schmooze/129014/zita-carno-defender-of-free-jazz-modern-music-and/