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Bill Cunliffe (piano/composer) bill@trimotif.com
| www.billcunliffe.com
After Bill Cunliffe won several Down Beat Awards as an Eastman
student, he taught at Central State University, in Wilberforce,
Ohio. His first major gig was pianist andarranger
with Buddy Rich, touring Europe with Frank Sinatra. He later
performed with Ray Brown, Joe Henderson, Freddie
Hubbard, Art Farmer, Woody Shaw and James Moody.
Bill was the 1989 winner of the $10,000 Thelonious Monk
International Jazz Piano Award, and has received stipends
from the National Endowment for the Arts. He recently won
a jazz composition competition sponsored by the American
Composers Form in Philadelphia. His books “Maxx
Blues Keyboard,” ”Jazz Keyboard Inventions”
(available 2006) and "Jazz Keyboard Toolbox,
" are published by Alfred Publications, his big
band compositions are published by Kendor Music and the
University of Northern Colorado Jazz Press, and his choral
music by Santa Barbara Music Publishers. Bill was
Marian McPartland's guest on her famed "Piano Jazz"
radio show in June '98.
Cunliffe has released a dozen CD’s as a leader.
His latest, which spent a month in the #2 position in the
JazzWeek radio polls is “Imaginacion”
an album featuring his Latin Jazz Nonet, on Torii
Records.
As a composer/arranger, Bill has been nominated
both for an Emmy and a Grammy, and has composed extensively
for big band, chamber groups, choir and orchestra. Recently
his compositions and arrangements have been played by the
Illinois Philharmonic, the San Diego Symphony, the Pasadena
Pops Orchestra, the Reading (PA) Symphony and the New Zealand
School of Music Symphony Orchestra. According to the Wellington
(NZ) Times, Bill’s recent concert at the Wellington
Jazz Festival was "Best jazz piano since Oscar Peterson."
The BBC Review recently said that "Bill Cunliffe is
one of the great players of the day." The Atlanta Jazz
Journal gave his album “A Rare Connection” five
stars.
He currently plays with the Clayton Brothers Quintet,
trumpeter Terell Stafford, and in duet with the renowned
flutist Holly Hofmann, in addition to his own projects.
He teaches at the Henry Mancini Institute, the Vail Jazz
Institute, and the Skidmore Jazz Institute, and is
Assistant Professor of Jazz Studies at the Esther Boyer
College at Temple University.
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