Bill Stevens

Bill Stevens - Performer, Composer, Arranger, Educator EDUCATION: September 1992 to May 1994 Master of Arts - Education Administration New York University, New York City School Administration and Supervision School District Administration August 1979 to December 1980 Master of Music - Jazz Pedagogy University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida August 1974 to May 1978 Bachelor of Music - Music Education State University of New York at Fredonia, N.Y.

EDUCATOR:

2016

Coordination and Director - Student Jazz Programing Brooklyn Conservatory of Music Lucy Moses School at Lincoln Center New York Jazz Workshop

July 2005 to Retired February 2016

Assistant Principal Administration/Organization Supervisor of Performing Arts Studios Director of Jazz Studies Frank Sinatra School of the Arts, New York City

November 2000 to June 2005

Assistant Principal Administration/Organization F. H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, New York City 1973 to Present Private Instructor Trumpet - all levels Jazz Improvisation - all instruments Composition and Modern Arranging Techniques

HONORS:

2023 - 2024

Invited to join the Artists Pedagogy Research Group, a Special Interest Group based in Helsinki, Finland and a part of the Society of Artistic Research (SAR) to be meeting/presenting at the annual SAR Conference April 19 - 21, 2023 in Trondheim, Norway and again on April 9 & 10, 2024 at the SAR Forum at Fontys Academy of Art in Tilburg, Netherlands. Over a series of Zoom meetings throughout 2023 and continuing through 2024 we will examine the following:

What are the unique qualities that artists bring to teaching artists, how can artistic research help to explore this and what can we learn by looking across the boundaries that separate fields of higher education in the arts?

The Artist Pedagogy Research group is a Specialist Interest Group of the Society of Artistic Research which sets out to explore these questions. It aims to bring together researchers focused on artists’ pedagogies. We use the term artist in its broadest sense to encompass practitioners from music, dance, theatre, performance, art making (studio arts, the free arts, or fine arts) and more. And we understand pedagogy not in its strictest etymologically derived sense of leading a child but as an overarching term for the theorization of teaching which might include didactics, critical pedagogies, student centred and world centred approaches and more, as well as terms that we are yet to define.

2023

My sound composition, A Light Exists in Spring, was selected by Cities and Memory to be part of the compilation album, The Sounds of the Year 2023.

2022

The Greek label, Thirsty Leaves Music is described as a micro-label publishing eclectic sonic adventures from all corners of the world and has recently accepted my composition from an open call "To Know a Place as Though for the First Time" from my album Hum of the World to be a part of a new compilation album "TLM presents Vol. 2: To Be Discontinued..." featuring nine international artists for a planned Winter 2022 release.

2022

Selected to compose a new sound composition as part of Well-Being Cities, a unique collaboration between Cities and Memory and C40, a global network of mayors of nearly 100 world-leading cities collaborating to deliver the urgent action needed right now to confront the climate crisis. 

The project asks artists to reimagine soundscapes representing well-being in cities – whether environmental, social, climate-related or cultural – with sound works being presented at the C40 Summit in Buenos Aires in October 2022.

2021

Selected as part of the Cities and Memory - Future Cities Project, Oxford, UK for a feature article and compilation album release by the English magazine, Electronic Sound of my composition Echoes.

2020

Submitted video as part of the Roger & Brian Eno Mixing Colors Project - "We want to ask you to submit a single shot film of a quiet scene; at home, or out the window, or in your garden. Clouds passing, rustling tree leaves, a bird nesting, people conducting activities in the house: quiet moments that we are all enjoying, together, in isolation." - Roger and Brian Eno *Video using the music Far Away is Close at Hand in Images of Elsewhere from the suite Spirituality and Faith

2020

Submitted to the Research Catalogue of the Nordic Journal for Artistic Research, Stockholm, Sweden - Theme: One More Time, Let's Do It Again ... What insights may emerge by doing something again and again, repeatedly, over a long period? We invite expositions of artistic research where “doing it again” is of importance, and we invite contributors to expose the artistic research questions, contexts, practices and outcomes in which repetition manifests itself, reflecting upon how “doing it again” may contribute to practice, to research, insights and to knowledge production. ...” *Lecture Title: An Examination of the Music and Performance Practice of Miles Davis, 1960 - 1969

2020

Invited to perform at the International Society of Improvised Music at the University of Melbourne Conservatorium of Music in Melbourne, Australia from June 3 - 7, 2020. *Planned performance to include a series of solo trumpet pieces with recorded spoken word and/or ambient electronic settings for improvisation.

2020

Invited to present and perform at the International Association for the Study of Popular Music International Conference RE-peat, please!, May 14 - 16, 2020 at the University of Antwerp, Belgium, the Netherlands. *Topic of Presentation: an examination of popular cover songs as a concurrent musical transgression and transposition when taking a songs first recording, made popular by someone else and then re-interpreted allowing for the covers constant comparison to, transformation from what has preceded it, a renewal, looking forward and listening backward.

2020

Selected to participate in Cities and Memory: Future Cities (Oxford, UK), the largest ever survey of the sounds of urban spaces around the world examining how the soundscapes of our cities are changing and what that means for us all. Future Cities will examine sounds from cities all over the world, with artists recomposing and reimagining these recordings to reflect on the role sound has to play in our changing urban spaces.

2019

Doug Cuomo - Bill Stevens Duo invited to perform as guest artists at Breathing Peace, Music for a More Peaceful World *BREATHING PEACE is a concert designed to help people envision peace and find a path to compassion and tolerance through inward reflection and outward action. Music has the power to heal. It eases personal anguish in a world burdened with violence and hatred.

2019

Invited as a guest artist/clinician, "The Music of Miles Davis" by pianist Amina Fugarova, New York Jazz Workshop Rhythm Section Class.

2018

Invited to speak at the Australasian Jazz & Improvisation Research Network Conference in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, June 1-3, 2018. *Topic of Discussion: So What? Jazz and improvised music research and its impact on artists, scenes and society.

2017

Invited to speak at the Joint Research Centres Conference at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo, Norway, November 1-3, 2017. Topic of discussion: *The Protean Musician, the musician in future society - What does the future look like for the musician in society?

2016

Joined advisory board of the Collective Music School 2014 Presented a Master Class at the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music on Jazz Pedagogy at the High School Level

1990

National Endowment for the Humanities Commisioned the composition, “Flip of the Coin” 1987 “New Jazz, New City”, Performer, Seattle, WA.

1986 to 1987

Seattle Arts Commission Grant Commissioned the “Suite for Jazz Quintet”

PRIVATE STUDY: 1972 - 1974 Elliot Topalian, Syracuse, N.Y. 1974 - 1976 Herbert Winters Harp, Fredonia, N.Y. 1979 - 1980 Gilbert Johnson, Miami, FL. 1987 - 1988 Randy Brecker, New York City 1988 Jack Walrath, New York City 1999 - 2009 Joe Solomon, New York City 2005 - 2013 Laurie Frink, New York City

Biography Statement:

Bill Stevens (composer, trumpet and flugelhorn) received a Bachelor of Music degree in Music Education from Fredonia State University in 1978 and a Masters degree in Jazz Studies from the University of Miami in 1980. Bill has performed professionally in Miami, Florida; upstate New York; New York City, San Francisco and Seattle, Washington. He has performed with Billy Eckstine, Earl ‘fatha’ Hines, Spyro Gyra, Ira Sullivan, Denis DiBlasio, Randy Johnston, Ronnie Leigh, Julian Priester, Brad Shepik, Chuck Metcalf, Marc Seales, Bob Meyer, John Bishop, Owen Howard, Dom Minasi, Pete McCann, Ben Gramm, Josh Sinton, Ben Rosenblum, Brian Woodruff and ensembles under his own name including currently the Bill Stevens Group, Sound House with Bill Stevens, Doug Cuomo and Gary Fogel, the Bill Stevens Songbook and Standard Time Ensemble. Additionally, Bill performs in the Brass Quartet - As Though I Had Wings, the New York Symphonic Arts Ensemble and the New York Jazz Workshop Big Band. Bill has been the recipient of performance and composition grants from the Seattle Arts Commission, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Music Center. He has been a guest speaker with the Joint Research Centres Conference at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo, Norway in 2017 and with the Australasian Jazz & Improvisation Research Network in 2018 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Since 1990, in New York City, Bill has performed in various Jazz clubs, festivals and music conferences. He has studied with Elliott Topalian, Herbert W. Harp, Gilbert Johnson, Randy Brecker, Jack Walrath, Laurie Frink and with bassist Joe Solomon. In the 1990’s he received a Masters in Education Administration from New York University and has recently retired as the Assistant Principal-Administration/Organization and the Supervisor of Performing Arts studios, as well as the Director of Jazz Studies at the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in Astoria, Queens. As of September 2016, Bill directed and coordinated Jazz programing for the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, the Lucy Moses School and the New York Jazz Workshop. Bill Stevens lives in New York City with his wife, the artist Laura Salzberg and their son Miles who lives and works in Brooklyn as a Strength Coach at Session Fitness with a specialty as a Nutrition Counselor at his business: Live Lagom!

Gear

1948 Martin Committee Trumpet 1972 Benge 3X Trumpet 1979 Yamaha YFH-631 Flugelhorn 1979 Yamaha YTR-634 Trumpet Custom Built Mouthpieces by Giardinelli, New York and Greg Black Mouthpieces Effects include tc electronic Flashback II Delay & Looper, Electro Harmonix Pitchfork and a 1960's Vox Wah Pedal.