Jazz pianist Claire Ritter finds inspiration on horseback
SURROUNDED BY A 14-ACRE FAMILY STAND in Weddington, sultry summer breezes, and red-shouldered hawks, acclaimed jazz pianist and composer Claire Ritter rides in solitude with the equestrian skill of her great-uncle, fabled Hollywood cowboy of 1930s westerns Randolph Scott.
Though she lives only 25 miles from uptown, Ritter finds frequent muses in the property’s wispy grass, blue herons darting about the lakes, and her aunt’s well cared-for horses.
“It’s my slice of paradise,” she says. “The land has been in the family since 1958, and we’ve always had horses. I remember riding bareback as a young girl through these fields, and finding arrowheads from the Indian paths leading to Waxhaw.”
Ritter, a North Carolina Arts Council jazz fellow and four-time recipient of the Arts & Science Council’s Regional Artist Grant, has studied and performed with some of contemporary jazz’s greatest minds. She’s worked with pianist Ziggy Hurwitz, a Charlotte Symphony arranger and jazz teacher, and Mary Lou Williams, who arranged numbers for Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman.
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