Sam Reider is a pianist, accordionist, composer, and educator from San Francisco, California. His work brings together various streams of American music, from jazz and folk tunes to popular song and contemporary composition. Reider first learned to play the piano from his father, a musical theater composer. In high school, Reider studied jazz, performed around the country with other young musicians, and was featured on Marian McPartland’s “Piano Jazz” on NPR. At Columbia University in New York City, he majored in American Studies and fell in love with folk music. While writing his thesis comparing the songwriting of Woody Guthrie and Ira Gershwin, Reider picked up an old accordion and began learning bluegrass and old-time tunes. This set him off on a journey that has taken him from back porches and dive bars to concert halls and major festivals all around the world.A passionate educator, Reider has led performance-based workshops for thousands of students around the world. These programs use American traditional music as a lens to explore important topics in cultural history and social justice. As part of Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Jazz for Young People program, Reider has led educational performances at K-12 public schools in New York City, New Orleans, Chicago, Washington D.C., Memphis, Nashville, and Providence. A mainstay on the faculty of the Stanford Jazz Workshop, Reider develops and teaches courses every summer for middle and high school students about composition, theory, and American music. Reider moved home to San Francisco in late 2019, where he is currently pursuing a master’s degree in composition at San Francisco State University.