BILLY CHILDS
“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.””
Billy Childs was born in Los Angeles on March 8th, 1957. In 1975, he entered USC as a composition major, graduating four years later with a bachelor of music in composition under the tutelage of Robert Linn.
Since then Mr. Childs has received a number of orchestral and chamber commissions from, among others: Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Leonard Slatkin, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, The Kronos Quartet, the Dorian Wind Quintet, the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, the American Brass Quintet, the Ying Quartet, the Lyris Quartet, Anne Akiko Meyers, Rachel Barton Pine, and Inna Faliks.
Thus far, in his career, Childs has garnered seventeen Grammy nominations and six Grammy awards: two for Best Instrumental Jazz Album (Winds of Change in 2024 and Rebirth in 2018), two for Best Instrumental Composition (Into the Light from Lyric and The Path Among The Trees from Autumn: In Moving Pictures), and two for Best Arrangement Accompanying a Vocalist (including New York Tendaberry from Map to the Treasure: Reimagining Laura Nyro, featuring Renee Fleming and Yo-Yo Ma). In 2006, Childs was awarded a Chamber Music America composer’s grant, and in 2009 was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 2013 he was awarded the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award. He has also been awarded a composers award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2015). In 2018, Childs was named “Outstanding Alumnus” of the Thornton School of Music (sharing that honor with, among others, Morton Lauridsen, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Marilyn Horne). Childs has also served as president of Chamber Music America (2016-2022).
Childs’ solo jazz recording career began in 1988, when he released four critically acclaimed albums on the Windham Hill Jazz label. Mr. Childs has also recorded two volumes of “jazz/chamber music” (an amalgam of jazz and classical music) – Lyric, Vol. 1 (2006) and Autumn: In Moving Pictures, Vol. 2 (2010); both recordings have collectively been nominated for five Grammy awards (winning twice). Childs recorded a collection of re-imagined Laura Nyro compositions for Sony Masterworks, released in September 2014. Map to the Treasure: Reimagining Laura Nyro, was produced by Larry Klein and features as guest artists, among others: Renée Fleming, Yo-Yo Ma, Wayne Shorter, Alison Kraus, Dianne Reeves, Chris Botti, Esperanza Spalding, and Lisa Fischer. In 2017, Childs released the first of his two Mack Avenue recordings, Rebirth, which won the 2018 Grammy award for best instrumental jazz album. Acceptance, his second Mack Avenue recording, was released in 2020, and his third Mack Avenue recording, The Winds of Change was released in March, 2023.
As a pianist Childs has performed with, among others, Freddie Hubbard, J.J. Johnson, Yo-Yo Ma, Sting, Renee Fleming, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony, Chick Corea, the Kronos Quartet, Wynton Marsalis, Jack DeJohnette, the Dorian Wind Quintet, Ying Quartet, the American Brass Quintet, and Dave Holland.
Selected commissions include, among others:
LA Philharmonic:
Tone Poem for Holly, (1993)
Fanfare for the United Races of America, (1994)
If, to The Color of Midnight, (2003)
Of Darkness and Light, (2018)
LA Master Chorale:
The Voices of Angels, (2005)
In Gratitude, (2017)
Dorian Wind Quintet:
A Day in the Forest of Dreams, for piano and wind quintet, (1996)
Ecosystems, for wind quintet, (2019)
Ying Quartet:
Awakening - string quartet #2, (2013)
The River, the Bird, and the Storm, for piano and string quartet, (2016)
Lyris Quartet:
Unrequited - string quartet #3
Regina Carter and the Detroit Symphony:
Violin Concerto #1, (2009)
Rachel Barton Pine:
Four Portraits for Violin, suite for solo violin, (2016)
Incident on Larpenteur Avenue, one movement sonata for piano and violin, (2017)
Violin Concerto #2, (2021)
Most recent 2022/2023:
The Inexorable Motion of Time for 6 percussionists and piano (2022 - Eastman School of Music premiere)
Variations on a Rondo for string quartet (2022 - Project Inclusion premiere at Grant Park, Chicago)
Concerto for Saxophone and Orchestra, for Steven Banks (2022), a consortium commission including the Detroit Symphony, the National Symphony, the Minneapolis Symphony, the Kansas City Symphony, and others (10 orchestras total)
My Roots Spread Far and Wide, for Billy Childs trio and Delirium Musicum (2022) - premiered Feb 23, 2023 at the Soraya Center, CSUN, as part of the Treelogy projec
Labyrinth, for Terell Stafford and Dick Oatts with University of Temple big band and orchestra (2023)
Violin Concerto #2, (2022) for Rachel Barton Pine, a consortium commission for the Grant Park Orchestra, the Boulder Philharmonic, the Anchorage Symphony, and the Interlochen Orchestra
In the Arms of the Beloved, (2023) for the Los Angeles Master Chorale, Anne Akiko Meyers, the Lyris Quartet, and the Billy Childs Jazz Chamber Ensemble - premiered at Disney Concert Hall, November 18-19
Opera based on Kindred, by Octavia Butler
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