Reed Burkholder began playing piano at age five, and later as a teenager performed both the Lizst E-Flat Concerto and Rhapsody in Blue with orchestras in his hometown of Boise, Idaho. Burkholder received a bachelor’s degree from the College of Wooster and a master’s degree in music theory from the University of Kentucky. He began teaching piano in 1975 and now maintains a large class of private piano students.

Composition is not new to Burkholder. He began composing while in high school, and during a pop songwriting phase in the 1980s wrote three songs that were featured on the national television show American Bandstand. Burkholder and his wife Anne, also a piano teacher, reside in Idaho.