Linder’s first exposure to the piano was at the age of five when his grandfather brought home an old upright piano he salvaged from an abandoned dance hall before it was torn down. Although he enjoyed learning simple songs and playing piano duets with his siblings, at the age of nine he convinced his mother to buy him an acoustic guitar and take him to guitar lessons. Unfortunately his teacher’s approach resulted in a short-lived stint with the guitar. “I’d probably be a guitar player today if my teacher’s style wouldn’t have been so very strict and extinguished all enthusiasm I had for the instrument. During my year and a half of lessons which consisted mainly of drills and scales, the closest I ever got to rock n’ roll was the piece I played for my last recital, ‘Home on the Range’. It was quite frustrating and I was finally allowed to quit.”
After finishing engineering school at Mankato State in Minnesota, Linder settled in Seattle where he began to focus more seriously on the piano. In 1992 he joined his first Seattle band.
After playing for several years with country and rock bands in Seattle and briefly in the United Kingdom, Linder’s musical interests began to change as he began exploring more of his own instrumental compositions. Most recently, Linder has been the featured artist on Seattle’s KWJZ 98.9FM Smooth Jazz morning show, Jazz Cafe. He is a familiar sound behind the dedications of nationally acclaimed and syndicated radio personality “Delilah” (airing on Warm 106.9FM in the Seattle area) and was featured on the KIRO 7 television special, “Holiday Spirit of the Northwest” which aired Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, 2002 and 2003.
With momentum building so quickly for this northwest talent, expect to be seeing and hearing much more from Craig Linder in the coming months and years.