Joshua Zimmerman released two solo piano albums in 2025 - his first albums in eight years - and I reviewed and loved them both. In this interview, we talk about Josh’s music, his teaching studio in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and some of the things that inspire his music. Enjoy!

KP: Hi Joshua! I hope your 2026 is off to a great start!

JZ: Hi Kathy! So far, so good! I really appreciate you taking the time to do this interview. I see that you just broke 300 interviews… That’s pretty remarkable. 

KP: Yes! And you are #300!

You released two excellent solo piano albums in 2025 - Finding Peace and Light Beyond the Shadow. Do you expect to be as prolific in 2026?

JZ: I hope so! I’m recording my next album in March. Afterwards, I’m planning on arranging some Christmas music to hopefully have ready for release later this year. The goal is 2 more albums in 2026! 

KP: Sounds great! You released your debut album, Crossroads, in 2017. What was that album like? (I didn’t review that one.)

JZ: I was a teacher and a band instructor from 2014-2017, and I stepped down from those positions to move closer to family. I wrote most of the music for Crossroads the summer after my last year as a band director. It was a season with a lot of changes and some pretty major decisions, thus the name Crossroads. 

KP: Finding Peace began as a collection of pieces inspired by significant events in your life. Tell us about how the focus changed, allowing the music to flow more freely.

JZ: Yes, I originally planned to create an album where each song highlights a specific event and is literally named after that event—like “Childhood,” “Graduation,” “Grief,” “College,” and so on. About 10 years ago, my brother passed away, and his passing was the event I had in mind when I began writing “Grief.” It carried the heaviest emotional weight for me, and although I started the song, I hit a wall after the first minute. I eventually put it on the back burner, scrapped the original album concept, and shifted my focus to my family, specifically, my wife and children. From there, the music began to pour out of me. It was filled with much more hope and life. After completing most of the album, I returned to my “grief” song, but this time with a much different perspective - seeing the goodness that came out of so much darkness and pain. I finished the song and named it “Finding Peace,” which would eventually become the title track. The first 56 seconds of that song is what I wrote that first night, and the rest of the song was composed after coming back to it. You can hear quite a shift in the feeling of the music. 

KP: Absolutely. It’s pretty amazing how life can take us in so many different directions. Do you have any favorite pieces from that album?

JZ: Definitely “Finding Peace,” but also the three songs that I wrote for my children: “For a Princess,” “Untainted Joy” and “Footprints in My Heart.”

KP: Apparently you started composing the music for Light Beyond the Shadow the day you finished recording Finding Peace. Has new music continued to flow that freely?

JZ: I heard somewhere that you’re the most creative the first 2 hours of the day, so I began waking up at 5 every morning and testing that out… and so far music seems to come much easier than I’ve ever experienced. It’s also helped to compose first thing in the morning because I listen to my ideas throughout the day and continuously develop my music. 

KP: Do you have any favorites from that album?

JZ: My wife and I celebrated our 10th anniversary, and I brought my keyboard to the hotel where we stayed. I wrote “Grace Without Words” that weekend, so that’s definitely a favorite. Side note: I didn’t just write music, we spent a lot of time together! Other favorites: “What’s Meant to Stay,” “Light Beyond the Shadow,” and “Made New.”

KP: Both albums were recorded at Joe Bongiorno’s Piano Haven studio in Sedona, AZ. Joe’s such a great guy! Did you know him before you recorded the albums?

JZ: Yeah, you ain’t kidding! Joe exceeded every expectation I could’ve hoped for. I didn’t know him prior to recording at Piano Haven. In 2024, Crossroads was accepted to Whisperings Solo Piano Radio, so I started listening obsessively to the broadcast. Any time a song really caught my ear, I would look up the artist and where the artist recorded their album. More times than not, it was recorded at Piano Haven, so I contacted Joe, and recorded Finding Peace a couple of months later. I knew the sound quality from Piano Haven was first class, but what really blew me away was Joe’s kindness, professionalism and genuine care for me and for my music. A few months later I recorded Light Beyond the Shadow at Piano Haven, and I’ll be back in March. 

KP: Do you have sheet music for any of your albums?

JZ: Yes! I have all of the sheet music for Finding Peace and Light Beyond the Shadow and my 4 most popular songs from Crossroads. 

KP: Tell us a bit about your teaching studio: Name? Number of students? Number of teachers?

JZ: I’ve owned The Piano Cottage since 2019, and we are based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Currently, we have 13 teachers and a little over 260 students. The vast majority of our students take piano lessons, but we do offer lessons for around 20 instruments. 

KP: Wow! That’s much bigger than I expected! When did you start teaching?

JZ: I first started teaching piano lessons my sophomore year of high school. I had a few students who’d come to my house. I also walked to students’ homes after I finished my cross country or wrestling practice to teach them. I continued teaching private piano lessons ever since.

KP: Do you find it difficult to convince kids about the amount of time and practice it takes to get really good at the piano? I found that really difficult around the time I decided to retire from teaching in 2020 (after 40 years!!!).

JZ: 40 years of teaching! That’s amazing - You’ve had quite an impact on countless lives! Yeah, motivating students is always a challenge. My goal is to find a way where students are intrinsically motivated to practice… not just do so because I said so. That might mean that we are using video game music to introduce chord inversions. Each student is different, so that means that every lesson needs to be tailored one way or another. I also teach with some pretty remarkable instructors, so I have the luxury to bounce ideas off of them, or even refer some of my students to a teacher who I think would be a better fit for them. 

KP: That’s really interesting and I totally agree that lessons need to be tailored to each student. It can be exhausting, but so worth it in the long run!

Let’s get to know you a little better now! Where were you born and where did you grow up?

JZ: I was born and grew up in Hudsonville, Michigan, which is a suburb of Grand Rapids.

KP: Are/were any of your family members musicians?

JZ: My brothers and I used to sing in area churches when we were younger. One of my brothers took piano lessons with me - he also was a very good guitarist. My other 3 siblings have played piano and guitar as a hobby, but never took it seriously. I grew up with parents that were constantly singing, so there was always music in the house. 

KP: How old were you when you started taking piano lessons? How long did you take lessons?

JZ: I was 10 when I began. I received a keyboard and 1 year of lessons for Christmas. Every year, my parents would renew my lessons if I continued to practice. It was a good reminder that lessons were a gift, not something I was entitled to - I took lessons until I graduated high school.

KP: What an interesting approach your parents took! I’ve never heard of that, but what a great idea!

Were you encouraged to improvise or compose by your teachers? I ask that because I wasn’t - it was strictly classical and “by the book.”

JZ: My first teacher taught me by the book for about 5-6 years. I always composed little pieces ever since I started lessons, but I really started to take it seriously in high school. My first teacher gave me an amazing foundation, but she didn’t know how to teach me to write and arrange music. Rather than force me to learn ‘by the book,’ she referred me to an instructor who could help me understand improvisation and composition… As a side note, that’s pretty rare, and I really appreciate her for having the wisdom to give me the option to study under someone else. For the next couple of years, my new instructor helped me break down and develop my compositions as well as understand how to improvise.

KP: Excellent! Do you play any other instruments? Did you play in school orchestras or bands?

JZ: I play guitar, drums, ukulele, and harmonica if the song is "Piano Man." I never played in school orchestra or band. The first school band I was in I was directing… I learned a lot on the job! 

KP: How old were you when you wrote your first song?

JZ: Probably around 15 is when I started writing a lot of music. I recorded a piano album in high school called Serenity. I bought a bunch of blank CDs and burned all of the music 1 CD at a time. I printed off some pictures for the CD cover and to stick on the CD, and I played in a local coffee shop and sold them. I probably sold about 200 copies, so it was a pretty nice side-hustle for a 16 year old. Other than the CDs that I sold, the music hasn’t ever been released.

KP: Did you play with any rock bands in high school and college?

JZ: Never any rock bands, but I did play on several worship teams in high school and college.

KP: When did you know that you wanted to be a professional musician? Did your parents or family resist or object?

JZ: I went to school to be a history and social studies teacher. In 2012, I student-taught at a catholic school, and helped out with their music during their weekly school mass. After I finished student-teaching, I substitute taught quite a bit for them. About a month into the 2013 school year, their band instructor left for a different school. At the time, they only had 3 high school students in band, and maybe 6 in their middle school band. There wasn’t enough interest in the program, so they planned to discontinue it after that school year, so they needed a bandage to direct the band until the end of the year. That’s where I came in - I was hired to direct the band until the end of the year. What was unexpected is that there was a ton of interest from the student body in the band the following year. They kept me on, and we had over 40 students within a couple of years. I loved it, and that’s when I knew that I wanted music to be part of whatever I did professionally going forward. My family and parents were very supportive.

A bit of a funny story about my first year as a band instructor. Every year all of the conference band directors would select their 10 best high school band students, and we’d get together and spend an entire day rehearsing as a group and then have a concert at night. Every director was given an hour to teach the band a piece of music. The largest high school band I’d directed before this was 3… (aka a trio)…. With 7 other directors watching me, I proceeded to instruct a high school band of 70 cream-of-the crop students from our conference. It was the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard, but I had to figure out how to critique them for an hour…. Talk about faking it until you make it! 

KP: [laughing] Who or what are your biggest musical influences?

JZ: Shortly before I began piano lessons, a pianist named Eric Schrotenboer performed at my church. It was the first time I ever felt music. I bought his CDs and begged my parents for lessons. After I began lessons, I learned most of his music by ear, and that process had a major influence on my development as a composer and my ability to add emotion into my music.

KP: Have you done any composing for films and TV?

JZ: Not yet, but that’s on the bucket list! 

KP: What has been your most exciting musical moment or experience so far?

JZ: My first trip to Piano Haven was pretty surreal. Meeting Joe Bongiorno, recording on his beautiful Shigeru Kawai, being in Sedona… I left with a new sense of confidence and reassurance that I was in this for the long haul. 

KP: Are there any specific pieces that you feel say the most about who you are as a person? Any favorites, if they aren’t the same pieces?

JZ: I think the ‘rawest’ piece that I’ve ever written is “In Memory.” It was a few months after my brother passed away, and I was playing the piano for a memorial service for a 16 year old boy who tragically passed away. I was overcome with emotions, both, for the family, and also still grieving my brother’s death. That piece came out of me in its entirety during the service. It’s the most emotional I’ve ever been writing a piece of music, and it still is a song where I feel emotionally drained after playing… It is 8 minutes long, so that doesn’t help! It isn’t necessarily a favorite, but it’s a song where I feel like I completely emptied myself into. 

KP: Wow. What a couple of emotionally devastating experiences!

Is there a particular philosophy that you try to convey in your music?

JZ: I can express what I’m feeling much better through my music than my words. I won’t ever record something that I’m not emotionally tied to in one way or another. I hope others can feel that emotion and get a sense of hope and peace from my music.

KP: Who are your favorite composers?

JZ: Hans Zimmer, John Williams and George Winston.

KP: Who are some of your favorite performers?

JZ: I really appreciate how Jon Schmidt and Steven Sharp Nelson (The Piano Guys) have been able to bring their music to life through their videos and their performances. They’ve reached an audience far beyond what you’d typically expect for instrumental music. 

KP: What do you like to do when you’re not doing music?

JZ: I really enjoy spending time with my family… That usually involves me pretending to be a prince and dancing with my daughters as we pretend to reenact "Cinderella" or "Beauty and the Beast" or wrestling and playing with my son. I play a lot of board games with my wife when the kids are in bed. I really enjoy running and biking. I’m also involved in my church.

KP: Is there anything else you’d like to talk about?

JZ: I travel to Colombia, South America each December, and I record music videos in some really beautiful locations. Last year I recorded all of the videos for Finding Peace, and about a month ago I recorded all of the videos for Light Beyond the Shadow. The videos for Finding Peace are on YouTube, and the others will be released soon. Here’s a link to the playlist of all the videos:

Also, thank you very much for taking the time to interview me. I know that you have so many other things that keep you very busy, and I’m very humbled that you’d take the time to ask such thoughtful and specific questions. It’s really special the amount of albums and artists that your thumbprint is on. Thank you so much for all of the work that you’ve done and that you continue to do! 

KP: Ahhh, thanks so much, Josh! I really appreciate that!