Pianist and composer Roberta Piket was born in Queens, N.Y. She began studying piano with her father, composer Frederick Piket, at age 7 and began playing jazz in her early teens. After high school, she entered a joint double-degree program at Tufts University and the New England Conservatory of Music, earning a degree in computer science from the former and a degree in jazz studies from the latter. During this time, she studied privately with Fred Hersch, Stanley Cowell, Jim McNeely and Bob Moses, and later with Richie Beirach and Sofia Rosoff.
A gifted composer, Piket was a finalist in the Thelonious Monk BMI Composers' Competition, and is considered both a swinging, straight-ahead jazz player and a thoughtful inventor of original and improvised music. For her "Nabokov Project," Piket arranged five poems by Vladimir Nabokov for piano, violin, mezzo-soprano with percussion, and speaker. Her recordings are met with regular acclaim in the jazz press, and she remains a busy educator, as well. Piket has also recently added singing to her resume.