Billy Childs’ Jazz Chamber Ensemble SUN / NOV 11 / 7:30 PM Billy Childs CONDUCTOR/ARRANGER/PIANO Judith Hill VOCALS Larry Koonse GUITAR Carol Robbins HARP Josh Johnson SOPRANO AND ALTO SAX Alex Bonham BASS Marvin “Smitty” Smith DRUMS Pamela Vliek Marchev FLUTE Aaron Childs VOCALS Wren Brown SPOKEN WORD The Lyris Quartet Alyssa Park Luke Maurer VIOLIN VIOLA Shalini Vijayan Timothy Loo VIOLIN CELLO Tonight’s program will be announced from the stage. There will be no intermission. Post-show Spotlight Talk Q&A with Billy Childs facilitated by Santa Monica College Faculty Lesa Terry. Management and Booking: Unlimited Myles www.unlimitedmyles.com Jazz & Blues at The Broad Stage made possible by a generous gift from Richard & Lisa Kendall. PERFORMANCES MAGAZINE 16 Naik Raj by Photo ABOUT THE ARTIST Jazz pianist/composer BILLY CHILDS remains one of the most diversely prolifi c and acclaimed artists working in music today. Childs’ canon of original compositions and arrangements has garnered him the 2013 Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship (2009), sixteen GRAMMY® nominations and fi ve GRAMMY® Awards, most recently for Best Jazz Instrumental Album (Rebirth). Previously, he won Best Arrangement, Instrumental & Vocal (featuring Renée Fleming and Yo-Yo Ma) in 2015 for “New York Tendaberry,” from his highly Photo by Raj Naik Raj by Photo successful release, Map to the Treasure: Reimagining Laura Nyro. ® Other GRAMMY wins include Best Hubbard, in the late 1970s/early at Lincoln Center Orchestra. Instrumental Composition for “The 1980s. In 2013, he premiered “Enlightened Path Among the Trees” (2011) and Souls,” a commission from Duke “Into The Light” (2005) from his Childs released his fi rst solo album, University featuring Dianne Reeves much-heralded jazz/chamber Take For Example, This…, in 1988 on and the Ying Quartet, to releases, Autumn: In Moving Pictures Windham Hill Jazz Records. It was commemorate 50 years of African- and Lyric. the fi rst of four raved-about albums American students attending the on the imprint, culminating with the school. In 2016, he premiered the Born in Los Angeles in 1957, Childs acclaimed Portrait of a Player, in piano quintet, The Bird, The River, was already profi cient at the piano 1993. In 1995, Childs released I’ve The Storm, also with the Ying by age 6; he was accepted in USC’s Known Rivers on Stretch/GRP Quartet (a piece they Community School for the Records. In 1996, he released The commissioned). Performing Arts at age 16, studying Child Within on Shanachie Records. music theory and piano with some Songs from both recordings In 2014, Childs released Map to the of the world’s most renowned garnered his fi rst GRAMMY® Treasure: Reimagining Laura Nyro musical scholars. He graduated nominations. (Sony Masterworks), which was from USC in 1979 with a degree in produced by Larry Klein and composition. Childs’ early Childs’ multiple musical interests features Reneé Fleming, Esperanza infl uences include Herbie Hancock, also include collaborations, Spalding, Alison Krauss, Shawn Keith Emerson, Chick Corea and arrangements and productions for Colvin, Rickie Lee Jones, Becca others. He credits classical other acclaimed artists, including Stevens, Ledisi, Chris Botti, Yo-Yo composers such as Paul Hindemith, Yo-Yo Ma, The Kronos Quartet, Ma and Susan Tedeschi. In spring Maurice Ravel and Igor Stravinsky Wynton Marsalis, Sting, Chris Botti 2017, he reached back to his jazz for also infl uencing his love of and Leonard Slatkin, among others. roots with Rebirth, a quartet album composition. Childs’ performing He has received orchestral and his debut on the Mack Avenue experience was also enriched by commissions from the Los Angeles label. early-career apprenticeships with Philharmonic, the Los Angeles legendary jazz trombonist J.J. Master Chorale, the Detroit Johnson and trumpet great Freddie Symphony Orchestra and the Jazz PERFORMANCES MAGAZINE 17.