Bill Laurance
Jazz
Sought after collaborator and Grammy award-winning pianist Bill Laurance has built a career blending genres of music seemingly at stylistic polar opposites.
As an original member of Snarky Puppy, whose contemporary jazz-fusion earnt four Grammys, Bill has showcased his talent in improvisation, a cornerstone of jazz at odds with his formal education studying classical music, composition, and performance.
As a session musician, his work has featured across advertisements for a variety of clients including Apple, and Sky, and films such as Un Traductor (2018). Bill also composed several themes for Initials S.G. (2019). He is lauded by the likes of David Crosby, with whom he has collaborated with on a number of occasions including the score for David’s 2019 documentary Remember My Name.
His compositions have been re-arranged for award-winning collaborations with the WDR Big Band of Cologne, and commissioned by the Cello Biennale for the Metropole. Bill has composed for countless dancers and choreographers, including Alvin Ailey’s Hope Boykin, ReDefine US, From The Inside OUT (2021), Here WE are (2020), An Evening of Hope at 92nd Street Y. (2021). He has worked with numerous dance companies in the UK including Matthew Bourne’s Adventures in Motion Pictures, Phoenix Dance, Northern Ballet Theatre, and English National Ballet.
His solo career (eight albums and three EPs in eight years), has featured compositions that explore electronic music, and conceptual narrative themes. Bill’s playing was tempered at a young age; at nine years old he was playing with school bands and sneaking off on a trip to London’s Union Chapel to play the organ. At 14 he had a residency playing ragtime and swing at a Soho bar. His later tenure at Leeds University led to meeting Michael League, whose likeminded approach to rejecting genre constraints resulted in working together in Snarky Puppy.
