About
Max Caplan is a classical and jazz composer and pianist based in the New York State Capital Region. He holds a Master of Music in Composition from the Hartt School of Music in Hartford, CT, and a Bachelor of Arts in Music and Classics from Union College in Schenectady, NY. His compositional instructors have included Hilary Tann, Tim Olsen, Max Lifchitz, Robert Carl, and Larry Alan Smith.
Caplan has worked and performed with numerous Capital Region groups including the Musicians of Ma'alwyck, the Schenectady-Saratoga Symphony Orchestra, Albany Pro Musica, Saratoga Voices, and the Empire State Youth Orchestra. His compositions and performances have been aired on WMHT and his string arrangements can be heard on the 2026 album Good Fiction by singer-songwriter Sean Rowe. As a jazz artist, Caplan is an incoming member of the Brucker-Weisse-Canterbury Jazz Orchestra and a frequent guest on the Eddie-Award-winning Jazz Vespers series at First Reformed Church of Schenectady.
Among his compositions are several commissions from the Musicians of Ma’alwyck, including a one-act chamber opera, Aleda: The Flight of the Suff Birdwomen (2018), which the Albany Times Union praised for its “invigorating and inspiring” score and “highly effective” original libretto. The Musicians of Ma'alwyck is in the process of recording an album of his music, scheduled for release in 2027.
Caplan is adjunct professor of composition at SUNY Schenectady and holds accompanist positions there as well as at Union College, Congregation Gates of Heaven in Niskayuna, and First Reformed Church of Schenectady.
