Jon Batiste

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Oscar and Grammy Award-Winning Composer & Bandleader

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Jon Batiste: Biography at a Glance

  • Jon Batiste is an Oscar and Grammy Award-winning composer & bandleader known for serving as the bandleader for Stay Human, the in-house band for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, for 7 years.
  • He also composed the score for Soul by Disney/Pixar for which he was awarded the Academy Award for Best Original Score.
  • At the 2022 Grammy Awards, Batiste was the night's biggest winner, taking home five awards including Album of the Year for his hit album, We Are.
  • Stay Human's releases include Chronology of a Dream and Anatomy of Angels: Live at the Village Vanguard and Hollywood Africans.
  • Batiste is currently the Music Director of The Atlantic, the Co-Artistic Director of the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, and is on the board of Sing For Hope.
  • Batiste received both his undergraduate and master's degrees in piano from the esteemed Juilliard School.

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Biography

Jon Batiste is an American virtuoso pianist, bandleader, composer, record producer, educator and actor. As a teenager, he began self-producing and releasing his music on the internet, as well as performing internationally. At the 2022 Grammy Awards, Batiste was the night's biggest winner, taking home five awards including Album of the Year for We Are. Batiste also won best American roots performance, best American roots song, best score soundtrack for visual media, and best music video for "Freedom." He was also nominated for 6 other awards.

Batiste's major label debut “Hollywood Africans” was nominated for a Grammy award for Best American Roots Performance in 2019 and, along with his band Stay Human, he is featured nightly on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. His music is featured in the Golden Globe and Academy Award-winning 2020 Disney Pixar film Soul, and his composing and songwriting will be featured in his large-scale, genre-melding symphonic work “American Symphony,” set to be performed at Carnegie Hall in 2021.

Born into a long lineage of Louisiana musicians, Batiste received both his undergraduate and master's degrees in piano from the Juilliard School. He is currently the Music Director of The Atlantic, the Co-Artistic Director of the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, and is on the board of Sing For Hope.

A Forbes 30 under 30 honoree, Jon balances a demanding performance schedule—which often includes his signature ‘love riot’ street parades—with public speaking engagements, master classes, brand partnerships, and acting roles. He played himself on the HBO series Tremé and appeared in director Spike Lee’s Red Hook Summer.

Jon has been featured in ad campaigns for Chase Bank, the Apple Watch, Lincoln Continental, and numerous fashion brands including Coach, Polo Ralph Lauren Black Label, Frye, Kate Spade, Jack Spade Barneys, Nordstrom, and H&M. He has worked with, among others, Bruce Weber and Annie Leibowitz and his personal style has been profiled in numerous fashion publications including GQ, Vanity Fair, CR Fashion Book, Esquire, and Vogue.

Jon is committed to the education and mentorship of young musicians. He has led his own Social Music Residency and Mentoring Program sponsored by Chase, as well as master classes throughout the world. He has also led several cultural exchanges, beginning in 2006, while still a teen, with the Netherlands Trust, which brought students from the USA and Holland to perform with him at both The Royal Concert Gebouw and Carnegie Hall.

Topics

Rhythms of Resilience: Finding Strength Through Music and Lovearrow-down

Jon Batiste shares his deeply personal journey of triumph, love, and healing through the universal language of music. Drawing from his experience composing American Symphony amid his wife Suleika Jaouad's battle with leukemia, Batiste reveals how life's most challenging moments can inspire profound creative expression.

With poignant anecdotes and behind-the-scenes insights into his most iconic performances, Batiste offers a testament to the transformative power of music to turn pain into beauty, and silence into symphony.

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Simply amazing. What an extraordinary person.  

Toigo Foundation
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