DennisLewinPianoMan

Dennis Lewin

Dennis Lewin

Dennis Lewin was born on August 15th 1959 in Cleveland Ohio and began piano at the age of 4 with his grandfather the late concert pianist Joseph Lewin.

At the age 6 Dennis began studying classical piano with Margaret Heller from The Cleveland Institute of Music. 4 years later Dennis auditioned for concert pianist and teacher Dr. Andrius Kuprevicius at The Cleveland Music School Settlement. He remained with Dr. Kuprevicious for 9 years and when Kuprevicious became the head of the piano department at  Cleveland State University Dennis followed and he also majored in musical theory with Dr. Heywood Alexander.

It was during college that Dennis began playing in many local rock bands and started experimenting with original music and over the next few years he would score much success in the field of writing.

In 1983 Dennis joined the very popular local group Jonah Koslen and the Heroes and the Heroes received a great deal of local success and recorded 1 album called "Aces".

After the Heroes disbanded Dennis teamed up with singers Frank and Tommy Amato and bassist Bill March to put together the very successful Cleveland band called Beau Coup. A large number of talented musicians played with Beau Coup during its career including:

At the age of 24 Dennis signed his first recording contract with Scotti Bros/CBS records for the album “Beau Coup” for which Dennis wrote all songs and lyrics. Several years later Dennis and Beau Coup signed another recording contract with Amherst/A&M records and it was under this label that “Beau Coup” released the album “Born and Raised on Rock and Roll" which proved a great success. Other than the song “Hold on Me” Dennis wrote all of the songs and lyrics for the album.

The song “Sweet Rachel” reached #53 on the “Billboard Hot 100” singles chart and received much radio and video play all over the world. Songs “Still in my Heart”, “Somewhere Out in the Night” and “Born and Raised on Rock and Roll” were all picked by Billboard as “Hot Picks”.

Another one of Dennis’s passions is his very successful radio program called "Turning You On To Classical Music with  Dennis Lewin" which was heard for many years on the Cleveland Orchestra's flagship station "F.M. 104.9 WCLV" which is now heard on "A.M. 1420 WHK Cleveland" every Sunday afternoon from 3:00 PM until 5:00 P.M. and on Sunday mornings from 9:00 A.M. to 11:00 A.M. on "F.M. 103.5 WXGR" New Hampshire. During the program Dennis gives an in-depth view of the lives and music of the most powerful and influential composers, conductors and musicians of all time including Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Copland, Stravinsky, Gershwin and more.

Dennis has received much acclaim for his solo piano CD called “Crossing Chagrin” which contains the music of J.S.Bach, Scarlatti, Debussy, Satie, Andrew Lloyd Weber and more.

He also scored the soundtrack to the independent film called “Filmic Achievement” written and directed by Kevin Kerwin. The film won “Best Director” at The Stratford-Upon-Avon International Film Festival and “Best Feature Film” at The Nolita Film Festival in New York City. “Filmic Achievement” was also featured in 12 other international film festivals including The Cleveland International Film Festival.

Dennis is also featured as a character in 2 of author Les Roberts Cleveland-based books “Indian Sign”  and “The Best Kept Secret”. He was also interviewed by Randolph Michaels for his international book “Flashbacks to Happiness": "Eighties Music Revisited” and "Deanna Adams for her book “Rock & Rock and the Cleveland Connection”.

In addition to performing with bands, teaching, writing music, and hosting his radio program Dennis is a very successful solo pianist and performs virtually everywhere including weekly on Wednesday evenings at the "Hyde Park Piano Room" in Beachwood Ohio".