Billy Childs

With a body of award-winning music that forges powerful syntheses of Jazz, Chamber, Choral and Orchestral music, multi-Grammy winner Billy Childs is perhaps one of the most distinct American voices since Aaron Copland. A native of Los Angeles, Childs grew up immersed in jazz, classical, and popular music influences. By the time of his graduation from USC, he was already an in-demand jazz composer and performer, and was discovered by legends J.J. Johnson and Freddie Hubbard, with whom he embarked upon an historic performing and recording tour. Childs has simultaneously commanded classical concert halls around the world, with commissions from Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, The Kronos Quartet, The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, The American Brass Quintet, The Ying Quartet, The Dorian Wind Quintet, and violin luminary Rachel Barton Pine. Childs' electrifying "The Voices of Angels," an epic Holocaust-the