Jon Batiste

• Who’s in the Lobby?: The first pop-up performance of this series taking place in the June Noble Larkin Lobby, with pianist Matthew Whitaker (BM ’23, jazz studies) joining Batiste View Video

• Lunch and Learn: A conversation with then President-Designate Damian Woetzel focusing on Batiste’s career and Juilliard training, culminating in a “love riot” community performance

• American Symphony Workshop: Reading of Batiste’s original orchestra work with the Juilliard Orchestra and Shereen Pimentel (BM ’20, voice)

• Bolero Juilliard: The landmark virtual collaboration of Juilliard students and alumni, presenting a portrait of artists amid the COVID-19 crisis  View Video

• 2020 Commencement: A surprise, improvised performance of the theme song to the Michael Jordan documentary The Last Dance to welcome graduates to the Juilliard alumni community

• Nothing Personal, but…: Performance in Colman Domingo and Patricia McGregor’s virtual interpretation of James Baldwin’s Nothing Personal with Lil Buck and Domingo featuring works by JuilliART artist Julie Mehretu, followed by a conversation with faculty member Fredara M. Hadley View Video

Jon Batiste (BM ’08, MM ’11, jazz studies) received a Grammy nomination for best American roots performance in 2018, and in 2020, he received two Grammy nods for the albums Chronology of a Dream: Live at the Village Vanguard and Meditations (with Cory Wong).

In 2020, he won an Academy Award for best original Score for the Disney/Pixar film Soul, an honor he shared with fellow composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. Batiste’s work on Soul also earned him a Golden Globe, BAFTA, NAACP Image Award and a Critic’s Choice Award. He is the second Black composer in history, after legendary jazz musician Herbie Hancock, to win an Academy Award for composition.

Batiste’s latest studio album, We Are, was released in March 2021 to overwhelming critical acclaim. Subsequently, he was nominated for 11 Grammys across seven different categories, a first in Grammy history. He went on to win five of those Grammys including album of the year.

Batiste's virtuoso composing skills were recently showcased in his large-scale, genre-melding symphonic work American Symphony, which was workshopped with the Juilliard Orchestra in 2019 and premiered at Carnegie Hall in 2022.

Batiste was appointed an inaugural Juilliard Creative Associate in 2018, and he has participated in numerous projects in collaboration with students and faculty. He became a member of the Juilliard board in 2022.