Billy Childs has emerged as one of the foremost American composers of his era, perhaps the most distinctly American composer since Aaron Copland – for like Copland, he has successfully married the musical products of his heritage with the Western neoclassical traditions of the twentieth century in a powerful symbiosis of style, range, and dynamism.
Childs has received 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 National Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Orpheus Orchestra, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Kronos Quartet, the Dorian Wind Quintet, the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, the Isidore Quartet, the American Brass Quintet, the Ying Quartet, the Lyris Quartet, Anne Akiko Meyers, Rachel Barton Pine, and Inna Faliks. His works have been performed at Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, and Disney Concert Hall.
He has also garnered seventeen GRAMMY nominations and six awards: two for Best Instrumental Composition (Into the Light from Lyric and The Path Among The Trees from Autumn: In Moving Pictures), 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), and two for Best Instrumental Jazz Album: Rebirth (2018) and The Winds of Change (2024). 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: Renee 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 Mack Avenue recordings, Rebirth, which won the 2018 GRAMMY award for Best Instrumental Jazz Album. The second, Acceptance, was released in 2020, and the third, The Winds of Change, was released in March, 2023, winning the 2024 GRAMMY Award for Best Instrumental Jazz Album.
As a pianist Childs has performed with, among others, Yo-Yo Ma, Sting, Renee Fleming, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, The Los Angeles Master Chorale, the Detroit Symphony, Rachel Barton Pine, Anne Akiko Meyers, Chick Corea, the Kronos Quartet, Wynton Marsalis, Jack DeJohnette, the Dorian Wind Quintet, Ying Quartet, the American Brass Quintet, and Dave Holland.