The Gilmore Announces Large-Scale Award for Jazz Pianists

For a few years, the Gilmore group has overseen the distinguished Gilmore Worldwide Piano Competition and Gilmore Artist Awards, each targeted on classical pianists. Lately, on account of a $8 million present, the group introduced that it’ll award $300,000 to a jazz pianist each 4 years. The Larry J. Bell Artist Award, named after the president of the Gilmore Piano Competition’s board of trustees and founding father of Bell’s Brewery, consists of “a $50,000 money grant for use on the artist’s discretion, and $250,000 disbursed over a four-year interval for initiatives and actions that may improve the artist’s musicianship and profession,” in line with the press launch obtained at JazzTimes. The primary Larry J. Bell Jazz Artist will likely be introduced in 2026.

This sizable award from the Kalamazoo, Michigan-based group can’t declare to be the most important financial prize a jazz musician might win nowadays, as a result of the well-known MacArthur Basis “genius grant,” which has usually been awarded to jazz musicians over time (together with Jason Moran, Regina Carter, Cécile McLorin Salvant, Tyshawn Sorey, and Vijay Iyer), supplies the recipients with a $625,000 grant over 5 years. Nonetheless, it’s a really important sum for the jazz pianist proficient and lucky sufficient to earn it. As well as, the Gilmore will start awarding two rising jazz pianists a Gilmore Younger Jazz Artist Award of $25,000 each two years.

A spokesperson for the Gilmore advised JazzTimes that relatively than carry out at an adjudicated competitors, the recipients of the award will likely be chosen by an nameless committee of judges who will tour the world for 4 years listening to pianists taking part in in live performance. The judges will then confer and select the recipient, after which the judging panel will likely be revealed.

The Gilmore Worldwide Piano Competition has historically alternated annually between classical and jazz pianists, with the upcoming 2022 version specializing in jazz. “Jazz has been a part of the Gilmore for the reason that first pageant, with visitors over time having included such greats as Chick Corea, Ray Charles, Bruce Hornsby, and—coming quickly in 2022—Herbie Hancock and Fred Hersch,” stated Pierre van der Westhuizen, the pageant’s Govt and Inventive Director within the press launch. “It has lengthy been our dream to acknowledge the nice jazz piano traditions and rejoice the following technology with an award that’s on par with the Gilmore Artist Award for classical pianists. It’s extremely thrilling to have assist on this enterprise. We’re so grateful, and we all know the present will enable the Gilmore to make an unlimited impression on this planet of jazz for years to come back.”

The very first Gilmore Worldwide Piano Competition in 1991 included performances by Chick Corea and Gary Burton. Different jazz artists who’ve carried out on the pageant embody Branford Marsalis, Hank Jones, Diana Krall, Fred Hersch, Dave Brubeck, Harry Connick, Jr., Brad Mehldau, Invoice Charlap, Emmet Cohen, James Francies, Christian Sands, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Snarky Pet, Aaron Diehl, Robert Glasper, and Ethan Iverson. This 12 months’s pageant takes place April 24-Might 15; it opens with a live performance by Herbie Hancock and in addition options Hersch, Cohen, Sullivan Fortner, Dan Tepfer, and Pablo Ziegler, in addition to 3Divas, Donal Fox, Svetlana and the Delancey 5, and the TRI-FI piano trio.

Study extra concerning the award, pageant and group here.