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 (B.M. and M.M. degrees with David Baker) and classical piano (D.M. degree with Michel Block and Leonard Hokanson, a student of Artur Schnabel) at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, winning the concerto competition for a performance of Aaron Copland's Piano Concerto. His career has emphasized both teaching and performance. He is now Associate Professor of Music at Indiana University where he teaches jazz and classical piano, jazz styles, and coaches jazz combos at Indiana University, and also teaches at the summer Jazz Camps in Shell Lake, Wisconsin, and the Bands of America/Music For All Jazz Camp. As a performer, he won the 1994 Indianapolis Jazz Festival Competition, and has appeared with such jazz artists as Jamey Aebersold, Eric Alexander, 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, Rufus Reid, Arturo Sandoval and Rodney Whitaker. 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, Japan in May 2004-2005, and China in May 2009) as well as classical musicians Bruce Bransby (bass), James Campbell (clarinet) and Corey Cerovsek (violin). His new Trio CD, LIVE AT THE STATION, was released in Dec 2009 on WATERCOURSE Records and features Jeremy Allen on bass and Jason Tiemann on drums. 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.
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