For the vast majority of his dual careers as a musician and a nurse, Ted Perry did everything he could to keep the worlds separate.
An accomplished jazz pianist and composer with a master’s degree from the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester, Perry performed for years around western and upstate New York and New York City. In 2023, he left his job as an oncology nurse at the University of Rochester Medical Center to work in the Intensive Care Unit at the University of Vermont Medical Center, uprooting both his professional and musical lives.
“A lot of the people I work with at the hospital, there’s no division between work and life,” Perry said in a recent conversation. “For me, when I would clock out, I had this whole other life as a musician, but I didn’t let them overlap. It’s taken me a while to realize that I’m both things.”
I had this whole other life as a musician, but I didn’t let them overlap.
Ted Perry
Now he’s embracing the collision of his two worlds for a special fundraising concert he’s organized in partnership with the UVM Cancer Center on Friday, February 20, at the SEABA Center in Burlington. “Groove Is in the Heart” features local artists and friends of Perry’s, such as jazz trumpeter and composer Ray Vega, indie-soul duo Dwight + Nicole, and guitarists Bob Wagner and Paul Asbell.
The idea for the concert emerged from Perry’s many conversations with his patients over the years. “It can be a fight to maintain human connection in an environment that pushes you to run, act, move,” Perry said, referring to the fast pace of the ICU. “But I like the interaction with patients. I like to talk music and life with them and hear their stories. And so many of their stories came back to how hard it is to talk about cancer and to afford care.”
It’s a cause near and dear to Perry’s heart: He’s a thyroid cancer survivor. “When I went through my struggle with cancer, I had a tight, supportive family network. But I see so many people without that net,” Perry said. “It’s constantly on my mind.”
Seeking to make a difference, he reached out last year to the cancer center’s executive director of philanthropy, Lindsay Longe. Together, the two identified the areas most in need of financial help: the Patient Support and Integrative Therapy funds. The first helps patients with care costs not covered by insurance, such as transportation to the hospital, childcare and meal vouchers; integrative therapy addresses the recovery process, including massage therapy, Reiki and acupuncture, which help with the emotional stress of cancer treatment.
“Ted is very in the know, both as a nurse and with his own cancer experience,” Longe said. “He’s seen firsthand what our patients need.”
Longe pointed out that both programs are entirely funded by philanthropy and that donation-based benefit events such as Perry’s are rare for the cancer center. That makes the concert something of an experiment for both parties.
Perry also hopes the concert will encourage people to talk with their family and friends about cancer, a subject that often feels taboo. He knows all too well how scarcely patients talk with people in their lives about being sick. He believes music is a great way to start the conversation, and he often uses it to break the ice with patients at the ICU.
“Things get pretty task-y in the ICU, so it can be hard to connect with people,” he said. “But I find music is such a great connector. I’ll ask them what they’re listening to, and usually they just open right up. It’s a humanizing moment and so important, believe me.”
Considering Perry’s long reticence to talk about one job while at the other, his patients might be surprised to know that music is more than just a passion of his. He’s been composing, recording and gigging at night for decades and spent years in the New York City jazz scene. His recorded works include 2008’s New Ways Forward and Outlier in 2024, both of which showcase his deft touch on the keys and melodic dynamism. He’s a fascinating composer who fuses modern jazz with shades of primal blues and post-rock twists, paired with an international sensibility that draws from multiple cultures and influences. In other words, Perry is a hyper-educated musician good enough to be subtle with his gifts.
And those gifts have made him a coveted player. He’s performed with the likes of jazz saxophonist Ernie Watts and James Brown trombonist Fred Wesley. Most recently, he paired with Dwight + Nicole’s Dwight Ritcher. Yet until recently, few of Perry’s patients would have had any idea of his nightclub-playing alter ego.
Perry said it’s always seemed easy, even prudent, to keep his music and nursing lives separate. After a long day on the ICU floor, playing music was the perfect balm, and he was reluctant to talk with other musicians about the things he was seeing at the hospital. But he’s found freedom in integrating the two parts of his life, particularly after the killing of fellow nurse Alex Pretti by Customs and Border Protection agents in Minneapolis in January.
“This debate of whether or not compassion is political has given me perspective,” he said. “There are forces out there working to separate us as humans. In a small way, this show is an intentional choice to try and bring us together and care for one another.”
The SEABA concert marks the beginning of a new period of Perry’s career, in which he is increasingly comfortable blurring the divide between his two worlds. “Why limit yourself to being one thing?” he said. ➆
The original print version of this article was headlined “Best of Both Worlds | Pianist, composer and ICU nurse Ted Perry combines his two lives for a cancer fundraiser”
This article appears in February 11 • 2026.
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