Andover Musicians and Musical Groups - Bill Cunliffe

• Bill Cunliffe is a jazz pianist and composer who grew up on Poor Street and on South Main Street in Andover.

• His mother played the piano and his father was a fanatical collector of records.

• He studied piano with Albion Metcalf at Phillips Academy where he graduated in 1974.

• While in college, he considered a career in medicine or psychology, but finally decided on music. He graduated from Duke University, and got a masters degree from Eastman School of Music.

• He has won a number of awards: 1981 Downbeat Awards for big band orchestral pieces, a Thelonious Monk International Jazz Piano Award in 1989, a 2003 Kimmel Jazz Center Award for his composition El Optimista. and a 2010 Grammy Award for an arrangement of a West Side Story medley, among others.

• He toured with Frank Sinatra.

• He has written music for the TV shows Another World and Passions and for the feature film The Banger Sisters.

• He wrote the book Jazz Keyboard Toolbox which became a standard reference in jazz.

• He is a professor of Music at California State University, Fullerton, and was named a "distinguished faculty member" there in 2010. He has also taught at Central State University, Musicians Institute in Hollywood, California State University, Northridge, the University of Southern California, and Temple University.

His music has been played by many orchestras: the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, the Illinois Philharmonic, and the Henry Mancini Institute Orchestra, among others.

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