RON SIMONE, pianist, from New Haven, Connecticut was immersed in music from childhood.  His father was principle bass player in the New Haven Symphony and played at the Schubert Theatre for many great musicals.  Ron played in orchestras and venues from the age of 13.  He graduated from the Yale School of Music with both his Bachelor and Master’s degree in Music.

Ron played at various summer resorts in Lake Placid, NY, Martha’s Vineyard, MA, Thousand Islands, NY, and Lake George, NY for many of the future stars of Broadway and Show Biz.  After college, Ron became accompanist to Hermoine Gingold as well as a rehearsal and audition pianist for countless singers in NYC.  When possible, he toured with the Ice Follies. Ron played on cruises and many other venues ending up on the road with the Sammy Kaye orchestra. After moving to Las Vegas, he became the pianist for the Broadway show, La Plume de Ma Tante and the next shows to follow, Gypsy, Irma la Duce, Bye Bye Birdie, among others.  He taught piano at UNLV for five years during the seventies, and as the chief rehearsal pianist for both the Tropicana and Dunes Hotels, he also wrote much music for the two production shows: Casino de Paris at the Dunes and Folies Bergere at the Tropicana Hotel, including the famous Can Can number that ran for over 30 years at the Tropicana. He has performed with many big headliners, such as Liberace and Barbara Streisand in her first appearance in Vegas.  He continued playing classical music in Jim Clark’s chamber concerts and contemporary music with Antonio Morelli in Pop concerts.  He joined his old New York violin player friend, Joe Mack, in the Desert Inn Monte Carlo Restaurant and became one of the best duos in town. Ron then joined the Johnny Haig Relief Orchestra, playing the off nights for the house orchestras for 13 years in as many as eleven hotels.  He then joined the house orchestra at the Tropicana Hotel. After the musician’s strike in 1989, Ron rejoined Johnny Haig again in the Caesar’s Palace house orchestra. He later became the “Invisabella” pianist in Caesar’s Magic Empire. He spent his last five years (of steady work on the Strip) there playing requests that astound him to this day!

After forty-three straight years on the Strip, Ron is still active but no longer plays any steady engagements.  He “cherry picks” what he wants to do and enjoys his weekly Friday morning sessions with a group of retired musicians playing some music of their choice – not the public’s choices. Ron has sequenced many tunes on his Korg Synthesizer and has put them on CDs hoping to eventually put them out on a commercial basis.