Jon Schmidt

Schmidt and his wife Michelle have five children and reside in Bountiful, Utah. In October 2016 their 21-year-old daughter Annie disappeared while hiking in Oregon. Her body was found the following month at the base of a cliff in the Columbia River Gorge; her death was ruled accidental.

After producing a number of videos that failed to garner much interest, the group posted "Michael Meets Mozart" (2011), and Schmidt invited the nearly 30,000 people on his fan mailing list "to watch it and share it". Views took off beyond the region. The group continued to upload new videos for the next two years, gaining thousands of fans each time. The group signed with Sony Masterworks in 2012 and went on to release seven number-one albums. As of August 2018 the group has surpassed 1.6 billion views on their YouTube channel and have 6.2 million subscribers.

By 2010 Schmidt was giving 100 concerts a year in the Wasatch Front metropolitan area of Utah, as well as in Arizona, Southern California, Idaho, and Washington state.

Schmidt became a member of The Piano Guys in 2010. The group and its music video concept originated as the social media marketing strategy of Paul Anderson, owner of The Piano Guys piano store in St. George, Utah. Anderson knew Schmidt from the latter's visits to the store; Schmidt enjoyed practicing on the pianos in the showroom whenever he came to town. In 2009 Anderson saw a music video that Schmidt had uploaded to YouTube, "Love Story Meets Viva la Vida" – blending the Taylor Swift country pop "Love Story" with Coldplay's Baroque pop "Viva la Vida", which Schmidt performed as a duet with cellist Steven Sharp Nelson. The video collected over one million hits. Anderson suggested that he produce professional videos of the musicians performing and upload them to his store's YouTube channel. Nelson brought his neighbor Al van der Beek, a songwriter and music arranger, onto the project, and Tel Stewart assisted with video production.

He released his first album, August End, in 1991. After that he signed with Aubergine Records and released A Walk in the Woods (1993), A Day in the Sunset (1994), and Jon Schmidt Christmas (1995). In 2000 he released To the Summit under his own label, JSP Productions.

Jon Schmidt (born 1966) is an American pianist, composer, piano teacher, and author. Classically trained, he branched into New Age music in his 20s and has developed a classical crossover style that blends classical, contemporary, and rock and roll. He has released eight solo albums and seven piano books containing original scores. Since 2010 he has been a member of The Piano Guys musical group, performing on their YouTube videos, albums, and in concert.