Luke Gillespie

Luke Gillespie was born in Kyoto, Japan, grew up in Osaka (where he studied classical piano with Yoshiko Sato, professor at Osaka College of Music) and went to an international school in Kobe, Japan (with Japanese as a second language). His musical career has had its bilingual aspects, too. He studied both jazz (bachelor's and master's degrees with David Baker) and classical piano (master's and doctor's degrees with Michel Block and Leonard Hokanson, a student of Artur Schnabel) at Indiana University, winning the concerto competition for a performance of Aaron Copland's Piano Concerto. His career has emphasized both teaching and performance. He now teaches jazz and classical piano, jazz styles, music history/appreciation, and coaches jazz combos at Indiana University, and also teaches at the summer Jazz Camps in Shell Lake, Wisconsin, and the Bands of America Jazz Camp. As a performer, he won the 1994 Indianapolis Jazz Festival Competition, and has appeared with such jazz artists as Jamey Aebersold, Dee Bell, Steve Davis (drums), Benny Golson, Wycliffe Gordon, Bunky Green, Jimmy Heath, Steve Houghton, Ingrid Jensen, Kelley Johnson, Pat LaBarbera, Janet Lawson, David Liebman, James Moody, Ed Neumeister, Chris Potter, Jim Snidero and Rufus Reid. He has recorded with the Arts Center Jazz Collective, David Baker, the Buselli/Wallarab Jazz Orchestra, Everett Greene, Dominic Spera Big Band, and Tom Walsh (with whom he toured Europe in May 2002-2003 and Japan in May 2004-2005) as well as classical musicians Bruce Bransby (bass), James Campbell (clarinet) and Corey Cerovsek (violin). His solo jazz piano CD, FOOTPRINTS, was released on RIAX Records in 2003, and his book, STYLISTIC II/V7/I VOICINGS FOR KEYBOARDISTS (endorsed by Danilo Perez, Geoff Keezer, David Liebman, David Baker and Frank Mantooth), was published by Jamey Aebersold in 2000 (2nd printing in 2006). Gillespie's unique style, with its rhythmic and harmonic virtuosity and lyricism, shows the influence of jazz, blues, latin, gospel and classical music. ..This profile was edited with MySpace Profile Editor MySpace Profile Editor