Billy Childs

One of the foremost American composers of his era, pianist Billy Childs has successfully “married the musical products of his heritage with the Western neoclassical traditions of the twentieth century in a powerful symbiosis of style, range, and dynamism.” He has garnered seventeen Grammy nominations and six Grammy awards including two for Best Instrumental Jazz Album, and two for Best Arrangement Accompanying a Vocalist (including Map to the Treasure: Reimagining Laura Nyro, featuring Renee Fleming and Yo-Yo Ma). He has received numerous awards, including a Chamber Music America composer’s grant, a Guggenheim Fellowship, Doris Duke Performing Artist Award and more.

Childs has performed with, among others, Freddie Hubbard, Yo-Yo Ma, Sting, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Chick Corea, the Kronos Quartet, Wynton Marsalis, Jack DeJohnette, and Dave Holland and has received a number of orchestral and chamber commissions including Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Leonard Slatkin, the Monterey Jazz Festival, the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, the American Brass Quintet, Rachel Barton Pine, and many others. His solo jazz recording career includes four critically acclaimed albums on the Windham Hill Jazz label and two volumes of Chamber Jazz music and served as president of Chamber Music America from 2016-2022. The Los Angeles Times notes, “As a pianist he possesses the improvisatory skills and powerful sense of swing one associates with world-class artists. Childs is an inventive composer and arranger whose effort in those areas consistently expand the dimensions of the jazz genre – and beyond.” For this concert he will be joined by Steve Wilson, alto saxophone; Dan Chmielinski, bass; and Christian Euman, drums.