Billy Childs Brings 'MAP TO TREASURE' to Bass Concert Hall Tonight

Texas Performing Arts opens the 2015-2016 season with Grammy Award-winning pianist/composer Billy Childs' Map to the Treasure: Reimagining Laura Nyro featuring vocalists Dianne Reeves, Becca Stevens, and Alicia Olatuja, tonight, September 10 at Bass Concert Hall. The Cordova Quartet, the Butler School of Music's graduate quartet, will perform with Childs and his band for this special performance that delves into the expansive catalogue of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame singer/songwriter Laura Nyro.

Childs grew up in Los Angeles in a home with two older sisters. One turned him on to jazz; the other turned him on to Laura Nyro, the singer-songwriter whose early albums became part of the soundtrack to his boyhood. Now, having been inspired by her songs for decades, he presents a concert based on Nyro's expansive music catalogue, whose songs include "Wedding Bell Blues," "Stoney End," "And When I Die,"Sweet Blindness," "Eli's Coming," "Stoned Soul Picnic," and "Save the Country."

Billy Childs

Jazz pianist/composer Billy Childs remains one of the most diversely prolific 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), thirteen Grammy nominations, and three Grammy awards, most recently for Best Arrangement, Instrumental & Vocal (featuring Renée Fleming and Yo-Yo Ma) in 2015 for "New York Tendaberry," from his highly successful release Map to the Treasure: Reimagining Laura Nyro. Previously he won Best Instrumental Composition for "The Path Among the Trees" (2011) and "Into The Light" (2005), from his much-heralded jazz/chamber releases, Autumn: In Moving Pictures and Lyric. Downbeat magazine states, "...Childs' jazz/chamber group has taken the jazz-meets classical format to a new summit."

Dianne Reeves

Dianne Reeves is the pre-eminent jazz vocalist in the world today. Her virtuosity, improvisational prowess, and unique jazz and R&B stylings have earned her the Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Performance for three consecutive recordings. Winner of the 2015 Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Album, Beautiful Life showcases Dianne's ability to meld R&B, Latin, and pop elements within the framework of 21st Century jazz.

Becca Stevens
This multifaceted singer-songwriter and guitarist has won widespread acclaim and built a loyal fan base, both for her own visionary releases and for her work as a versatile collaborator who has lent her talents to a diverse array of projects with a wide assortment of rock, pop, jazz, and contemporary classical musicians. Weightless, her 2011 breakthrough album with the Becca Stevens Band, was widely celebrated by critics and fans alike, establishing Stevens as a startlingly original creative force with a seemingly limitless future. Since 2004, she has served as a lead singer of Travis Sullivan's Björkestra, fronting a genre-bending eighteen-piece jazz orchestra interpreting the songs of Björk on three albums and countless live performances.

Alicia Olatuja
Brooklyn singer Alicia Olatuja electrified a crowd of a million people on the National Mall at the 2013 presidential inauguration with her richly textured, show-stopping solo with the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir. Olatuja sings with a strong, lustrous tone, and mixes elements of classical, jazz, gospel, and pop into her fluid vocalism. She has played alongside giants like Chaka Khan, Christian McBride, and Bebe Winans. On October 16, 2014, she celebrated the release of her solo album, Timeless, with an intimate show at BRIC House.

In addition to $10 tickets for primary, secondary, or college students, Texas Performing Arts is now offering a limited number of $12 tickets to active and retired military personnel for all 2014-2015 season performances (excludes Broadway and special engagements). For a schedule of upcoming 2014-2015 season performances, please visit www.TexasPerformingArts.org.

For more information on this performance, please visit http://texasperformingarts.org/season/billy-childs-bass-concert-hall-2015