He continued his studies at the New England Conservatory under Jaki Byard, attracting attention from the press ("a fine showcase for Fred Hersch") in a college recital.

Jazz critic Leonard Feather wrote that Hirsch "showed his ability as an accompanist and soloist at the out-of-tune piano".

[6] In 1980, the Fred Hersch Trio played at B. Dalton Bookseller, one of many fringe events that were an offshoot of the Newport Jazz Festival.

[7] The next year, his trio played for singer Chris Connor, who was making a comeback after completing a recovery program for alcoholism.

"[11] In 1983–84, Hersch played many sessions with Jane Ira Bloom in several venues, and with whom he recorded the album, Mighty Lights.

"[22] In 1989, Hersch played with Janis Siegel of The Manhattan Transfer and they recorded together in a studio set up in his home.

[26] In 2024, Hersch played with Drew Gress and Joey Baron at the Teatro Mario Del Monaco, in Treviso, in North East of Italy.

He has received commissions from the Gilmore Keyboard Festival, the Doris Duke Foundation, the Miller Theatre at Columbia University, the Gramercy Trio and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus.

Many of Hersch's compositions have been transcribed by music publisher Edition Peters, including Valentine, Three Character Studies, Saloon Songs, and 24 Variations on a Bach Chorale.

In the same year, he created Leaves of Grass (Palmetto Records), a large-scale setting of Walt Whitman's poetry for two voices (Kurt Elling and Kate McGarry) and an instrumental octet; it was presented in March 2005 at Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall as part of a six-city U.S.

[29] Hersch has worked with instrumentalists and vocalists in the worlds of jazz (Joe Henderson, Charlie Haden, Art Farmer, Stan Getz and Bill Frisell), classical music (Renée Fleming,[30] Dawn Upshaw, Joshua Bell,[31] Christopher O'Riley, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg),[32] and Broadway (Audra McDonald).

"[42] Hersch's influence has been widely felt on a new generation of jazz pianists, from former Hersch students including Brad Mehldau, Ethan Iverson, Sullivan Fortner, Aaron Diehl and Dan Tepfer to his contemporary Jason Moran, who said: "Fred at the piano is like LeBron James on the basketball court.

[44][48] Good Things Happen Slowly: A Life In and Out of Jazz, published in 2017 [49] (Artists and labels are linked only once, at first appearance.