Jazz pianist/composer Billy Childs remains one of the most diversely prolific and acclaimed artists working in music today. Childs’ canon of original compositions and arrangements has garnered him a Guggenheim Fellowship, ten Grammy nominations, and three Grammy awards, including Best Instrumental Composition for ‘The Path Among the Trees’ (2011) and ‘Into The Light’ (2005), from his much-heralded jazz/chamber releases, ‘Autumn: In Moving Pictures’ and ‘Lyric’. Downbeat magazine states, ‘...Childs’ jazz/chamber group has taken the jazz-meets-classical format to a new summit.’
Born in Los Angeles in 1957, Childs was already proficient at the piano by age 6; he was accepted in USC’s Community School For The Performing Arts at age 16, studying music theory and piano with some of the world’s most renowned musical scholars. He graduated from USC in 1979 with a degree in composition. Among Childs’ early influences: Herbie Hancock, Keith Emerson, Chick Corea and others. He credits classical composers such as Paul Hindemith, Maurice Ravel, and Igor Stravinsky for also influencing his love of composition. Child’s performing career was also enriched with early-career apprenticeships with legendary jazz trombonist J.J. Johnson, and trumpet great Freddie Hubbard, in the late 1970s/early 1980s.
Childs released his first solo album, ‘Take For Example, This…’ in 1988, on Windham Hill Jazz Records. It was the first of four raved-about albums on the imprint, culminating with the acclaimed ‘Portrait Of A Player,’ in 1993. In 1995 Childs’ released ‘I’ve Known Rivers’ on Stretch/GRP Records. In 1996 he released ‘The Child Within’ on Shanachie Records. Songs from both recordings garnered his first Grammy nominations.
Childs’ multiple musical interests also include collaborations, arrangements, and productions for other acclaimed artists, including Yo Yo Ma, The Kronos Quartet, Wynton Marsalis, Sting, Chris Botti, and Leonard Slatkin, among others. Childs has received orchestral commissions from The Los Angeles Philharmonic, The Los Angeles Master Chorale, The Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and The Lincoln Jazz Center Orchestra (where he presented ‘The Fierce Urgency Of Now,’ a musical accompaniment to various texts by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., performed by Childs and Wynton Marsalis, as part of the inaugural concert series for the launch of the new Jazz At Lincoln Center venue).
Most recently, Childs is working on various commissions and projects, including upcoming collaborations with the Kronos Quartet, a concert piece for the jazz/chamber ensemble to be performed at Duke University, and an upcoming recording for Sony, re-imagining the music of Laura Nyro.