Occupation(s) Musician, composer Name Kris Bowers Instruments Piano, keyboards Role Pianist | Years active Early 2010s–present Genres Jazz Website krisbowersmusic.com Albums Heroes + Misfits | |
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Born April 5, 1989 (age 35) Los Angeles, California, U.S. ( 1989-04-05 ) Similar People Jose James, Takuya Kuroda, Casey Benjamin, Chris Turner, Robert Glasper Profiles | ||
Musical performance kris bowers at tedxharlem
Kristopher Bowers (born April 5, 1989) is an American film score composer, pianist, and keyboardist.
Contents
- Musical performance kris bowers at tedxharlem
- Kris bowers live blue lounge vienna 2014
- Life and career
- Influences
- Personal life
- Discography
- Soundtracks
- References
Kris bowers live blue lounge vienna 2014
Life and career
Bowers was born in Los Angeles on April 5, 1989. His father is a film and television writer, and his mother is a television executive. They wanted their son to play the piano, so played recordings of pianists when he was still in the womb, and sent him to lessons from the age of 4. He had private classical music lessons from around the age of 9.
He initially listened to "classic soul records and hip-hop before falling under the spell of jazz, classical music, and film scores." At Los Angeles County High School for the Arts he studied jazz and classical piano, including being taught by Mulgrew Miller and Donald Vega, and also studied jazz at Colburn School for Performing Arts. He graduated in 2006, and then attended Juilliard, and obtained a bachelor's and master's degree in jazz performance there. While a student, he had frequent gigs in New York.
Bowers was the winner of the 2011 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Piano Competition. In the same year, he played on Watch the Throne, a Jay Z and Kanye West album. Bowers toured with Marcus Miller for the whole of 2012. Bowers recorded Heroes + Misfits late in 2014, and the album was released by Concord Records in 2014. An AllMusic reviewer commented that the pianist was "Based in jazz but with an ear for contemporary R&B, film scores, and electronic music".
In 2014, Bowers performed at the International Jazz Day Concert in Japan, the Festival de Jazz de Vitoria-Gasteiz in Spain, and at the London Jazz Festival.
Bowers is also interested in composing, including film scores. He wrote the music for the documentaries Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me, and Seeds of Time before his first album was released. Between then and mid-2016, he composed for seven more documentaries.
Influences
Bowers' influences include "Oscar Peterson, Wynton Kelly ('for his comping and incredible feel'), Duke Ellington ('for his compositions'), Ahmad Jamal and Count Basie.
Personal life
Rapper Murs is a cousin of Bowers.
Discography
An asterisk (*) indicates that the year is that of release.