Billy Childs
Monday, April 13th, 2009
Billy Childs, one of the most in-demand composers, arrangers and pianists in jazz, and his Jazz-Chamber Ensemble will take the stage Friday, April 24, at 8 p.m. in North Central’s acoustically perfect Wentz Concert Hall. Childs has been nominated for eight Grammy Awards and won two in 2006: Best Instrumental Composition for “Into the Light” for the Billy Childs ensemble release “Lyric” and Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying a Vocalist for his work with Chris Botti and Sting. Just announced in April, he was awarded a prestigious fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial. Childs will be recording with his Jazz-Chamber Ensemble and the Ying Quartet this spring and has also been co-commissioned by the Detroit Symphony, Boston Pops, Notre Dame Symphony and Oakland East Bay Symphony to compose a new violin concerto for Regina Carter. This piece will be premiered by the Detroit Symphony in January 2010.
He has written works for a number of orchestras and recorded with such jazz greats as Freddie Hubbard, Dianne Reeves, Luciana Souza and Lou Rawls. “The Fierce Urgency of Now,” his musical version of various texts by Dr. Martin Luther King, was performed with Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. He’s been commissioned twice by the Monterey Jazz Festival, first to write an extended piano concerto and then to arrange a set of original compositions for Bobby Hutcherson.
Childs has performed with his own trio in Carnegie Hall and has worked on various commissions sponsored by, among others, the L. A. Philharmonic, the New Century Chamber Orchestra and the Dorian Wind Quintet, as well as the score to “Crazy As Hell,” a film directed by Eriq LaSalle. He has also produced the CD, “Rhythm Of Life” by Verve recording artist Claudia Acuna.
