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Jazz Great Billy Taylor to Join C.W. Post
Music Faculty
March 9, 2000 -- Billy Taylor began his career in jazz on
New York's famous 52nd St., where he played with legendary musicians
such as Ben Webster, Coleman Hawkins and Slam Stewart at Minton's
Playhouse and later as house pianist at Birdland. Today, more
than 50 years after he arrived in New York, Taylor is recognized
as America's foremost ambassador of jazz. This celebrated pianist,
composer and educator (he holds a Ph.D. in music education) will
join Long Island University's C.W. Post Campus as the Rose Tilles
University Professor in the Performing Arts and Distinguished
Artist-in-Residence.
Taylor will be a faculty member in C.W. Post's highly regarded
School of Visual and Performing Arts. He will help further expand
Long Island's largest campus selection of arts and cultural events
and master classes, which includes presentations by C.W. Post's
music and art departments and the
campus' Tilles Center for the Performing Arts. He also will help
launch one of the nation's most comprehensive, multidimensional
models for arts education under the new C.W. Post Institute for
Arts & Culture.
Taylor will inaugurate his new association with C.W. Post
with an appearance at Tilles Center Wednesday, April 12, 2000.
Even before that, a Billy Taylor Jazz Festival will be presented
from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 16, 2000 by the
Long Island University Public Radio Network, which for the past
year has devoted its music programming to jazz. The network comprises
WCWP-FM 88.1 in Brookville and WPBX-FM 88.3 in Southampton. During
a day entirely devoted to music from Taylor's huge archive of
300-plus recordings, Taylor will be interviewed and other experts
in the arts will reflect on his career. Celebrated vocal conductor
Alexander Dashnaw, chairman of the C.W. Post Music Department,
will be among those interviewed.
Tilles Professorship
The Tilles professorship is being established by the Tilles family
in honor of Rose Tilles, a Long Island philanthropist who is
the mother of Roger Tilles, Peter Tilles, and Ellen Tilles Weil.
The gift underscores the family's commitment to the arts on Long
Island and to C.W. Post as a leading cultural and educational
destination. The two brothers are the third generation following
their grandfather, Eli, and their father, Gilbert, into the family
business, which is a major force in developing commercial office
space on the Island.
The Tilles professorship will be the first University Professorship
at C.W. Post. Such professorships are held by outstanding internationally
recognized leaders in their fields. Other University Professors
at Long Island University are the conceptual artist and critic
Brian O'Doherty, who makes his art under the name of Patrick
Ireland, and the essayist and public television commentator,
Roger Rosenblatt. Both O'Doherty and Rosenblatt are based at
the University's Southampton College. Taylor will be based at
the C.W. Post Campus in Brookville, N.Y., during his one-year
appointment, which begins in April 2000.
Schedule of Teaching, Performing
Taylor's April 12 appearance will feature his famous trio. With
bassist Chip Jackson and drummer Winard Harper, he will perform
the works of various jazz greats as well as his own compositions.
He will then give two additional performances during his residencies,
one in fall 2000 and another in spring 2001, marking the Tilles
Center's 20th anniversary season.
Next fall, Taylor also will work with C.W. Post's student
Jazz Ensemble and Long Island Sound - vocal jazz, coach individual
students, and conduct workshops and master classes. His broad
knowledge of the arts and of America's contribution to music
will inform his lectures in a wide range of C.W. Post courses.
A new degree concentration in jazz, currently under development,
will enhance the jazz courses in history, composition, arranging
and improvisation already offered to C.W. Post students.
"This appointment is an aggressive response to students'
increasing interest in jazz music," said Lynn Croton, dean
of the School of Visual and Performing Arts. "Dr. Taylor
offers our students a broad range of opportunities, from performance
and music appreciation to history and teacher education."
Taylor also will participate in outreach activities with area
schools. At Tilles Center he will perform his "What is Jazz?"
program in the Stage II series for families with children ages
eight and up, and he will be featured in "Billy Taylor at
Club T," a series of concerts with commentary, in the Hillwood
Recital Hall.
Initiative for New Institute
Bringing Taylor to the campus is a major initiative to enhance
the C.W. Post Institute for Arts & Culture, a new campus
entity founded last spring to focus on a national model for arts
education. The institute coordinates the Artist-in-Residence
program in conjunction with the School of Visual and Performing
Arts. The institute incorporates the arts into every aspect of
the C.W. Post curriculum, from classes, workshops and master
classes for arts and non-arts students through performances for
students and the public and outreach to students in grades K-12.
Tilles Family Expands Commitment
"Through his work at the Kennedy Center and decades of international
touring, Billy Taylor has established himself as the preeminent
ambassador of jazz -- America's classical music," said Elliott
Sroka, executive director of Tilles Center and the Institute
for Arts & Culture. "We are proud and privileged to
bring him to Long Island."
Rose Tilles, her late husband, Gilbert, and their children
are Tilles Center's major benefactors. Long Island University
renamed the C.W. Post Concert Theater in her and Mr. Tilles'
honor following a substantial gift in 1986. Since Mr. Tilles'
death in 1990, the family has maintained its leadership role,
with Rose Tilles as the Tilles Center Council of Overseers' honorary
chairman.
"By endowing this chair, we are honoring our mother in
a way that is in keeping with our family's commitment to Long
Island University, arts education, and improving the quality
of life on Long Island," said Roger Tilles. Roger, his brother,
Peter, and their sister, Ellen, have been generous supporters
of Tilles Center and Long Island University. Roger is chair of
the Long Island University Board of Trustees, while Peter chairs
the annual "Swing for Kids" golf and tennis tournament
which raises money for Tilles Center's programs for schools and
children.
Taylor Career History
Taylor's own musical education began at the age of seven. After
graduating from the University of Virginia, he moved to New York
where he quickly immersed himself in the local music scene, playing
with Cozy Cole, Ethel Waters, the legendary Machito and his Latin
Band, and later with such legends as Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday
and John Coltrane. He especially enjoyed performing with bass
and drums in the trio format. Over the years the Billy Taylor
Trio has included many jazz greats such as Charles Mingus, Art
Blakey, Jo Jones and Oscar Pettiford.
As a composer, Taylor has some 300 songs to his credit, including
"I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free," which
played over the opening and closing credits of the film "Ghosts
of Mississippi." He has melded jazz and classical music
in commissioned works for the John F. Kennedy Center for the
Performing Arts, the Atlanta Symphony, the Krannert Center at
the University of Illinois and numerous others.
Since his days on 52nd Street, Taylor has performed predominantly
as the leader of his own trios which have, over the years included
such jazz greats as Charles Mingus, Art Blakey, Oscar Pettiford
and Jo Jones. He is well known for his work as on-air arts correspondent
for CBS Sunday Morning (now in his 20th season with that program)
as well as his radio broadcasts. His current series, the popular
"Billy Taylor's Jazz at the Kennedy Center," airs nationally
on National Public Radio (WBGO-FM here in New York.)
Taylor co-founded Jazzmobile, an organization based in Harlem
which has provided free concerts and music clinics to thousands
free of charge since the mid 1960's. He conducts seminars, workshops
and master classes for students of all ages, from elementary
school age to adults. His interactive concert series, "Jazz
Models & Mentors," is held four times each season at
the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Featuring the Billy Taylor Trio
with a special guest, these concerts provide a forum for audiences
to interact with the musicians and ask questions about their
craft and background.
Taylor has received numerous awards and accolades, including
the National Medal of Arts, two Peabodys and an Emmy. This month
he will receive the Millennium Jazz Award from the Mid Atlantic
Arts Foundation. In May, he will be awarded the Lifetime Achievement
Award from the Duke Ellington School of the Arts.
In education, he is a member of the Hall of Fame for the International
Association of Jazz Educators, holds the Wilber D. Barrett Chair
of Music at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where
he earned his doctorate, and has been appointed a Duke Ellington
Fellow at Yale.
C.W. Post's rich selection of on-campus cultural events includes
more than 200 activities each year at the nationally renowned
Tilles Center for the Performing Arts, Hillwood Art Museum, the
Hutchins Gallery and the Post Theatre Company, plus lectures,
performances and exhibitions offered by the
campus's departments and continuing education program.
For more information about Billy Taylor's appointment, call
the C.W. Post Public Relations at (516) 299-2333 or email pr@cwpost.liu.edu.
Those interested in the School of Visual and Performing Arts
can call (516) 299-2395 or visit this web site at www.liu.edu/svpa
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