Richard Zimmerman has been largely responsible for the world-wide revival of ragtime, and is one of its key figures as both a performer and a historian. Dick first became acquainted with ragtime while he was an engineering student at Stanford University. Today, he has a broad repertoire of several hundred rags, which he has performed around the world on stage, radio and television. He has appeared in concert and at music festivals throughout the United States and Canada, including the Montreal Jazz Festival and the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. He has also served as musical director of the Scott Joplin Ragtime Festival in Sedalia, Missouri, for 17 years. His television appearances include The Tonight Show, public television specials, BBC-TV and Canadian Broadcasting Co. ragtime specials and Australia's Tropicarnival. In 1987, he was awarded the title "Champion Ragtime Performer of the World." Zimmerman is the only pianist to have recorded the complete works of Scott Joplin. He has made numerous other recordings of some of the best of ragtime music and early blues from 1909-1919, and has recorded the complete works of 12th Street Rag composer Euday Bowman, along with other great Texas ragtime writers. A founder of the Maple Leaf Club, the worldwide organization devoted to preserving classic ragtime, he is the editor of its publication, The Rag Times. In this capacity, he has done a great deal of research into ragtime subjects, documenting the history of this music and the lives of those who wrote, played and published it. Many important historical research projects have been published first in The Rag Times, and the newsletter has the reputation of being a primary source of information for scholars and fans alike. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.