Cape Town - Esteemed jazz piano player, composer, recording artist and author, Andrew Lilley, is everything but a one trick pony.
Lilley is also a music professor and was recently appointed director of the South African College of Music at the University of Cape Town.
He has over thirty years of experience in the academic space as an educator and manager.
Lilley’s latest album Silhouette was also released earlier this year.
Silhouette is a solo piano album and was conceptualised and recorded in Cape Town and mastered in New York.
“It is a digital release and is available on all major platforms including Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube and Amazon,” Lilley explained.
Both Lilley’s parents were professional orchestral musicians, so he fell into music by virtue of circumstance.
“But I think what draws you to something intuitively is an intangible force, maybe part-DNA, part-circumstance, who knows.”
He studied music as a child and after school he studied architecture at UCT.
After completing a BAS, he left SA to study music at Berklee College of Music in Boston where he graduated in Music Synthesis.
He also holds a PhD from UCT.
When asked how it feels to be the first jazz musician to take the helm at the South African College of Music, Lilley answered that it is an iconic moment.
“While I am a professor in the jazz studies programme, I always feel more of a performer than an academic,” he said.
“I never imagined I would take on a position of this nature.”
Lilley added everything he does is informed by his understanding of music.
“Not in an obsessive way, but music is a reflection of life, an expression of life in a different medium,“ he said.
“I see music in everything I do.”
Mikhaila Alyssa Smith, a composer and pianist from Cape Town who now lives New York City, said it’s impossible to speak about South African jazz without the Lilley’s name at the forefront.
“Lilley is a visionary pianist and composer with a profound influence in both the performance and academic realm,” she said proudly.
Nomfundo Xaluva, South African celebrity performer, educator and academic shared Smith’s sentiments.
“Professor Lilley is not only one of the most respected figures of authority in the jazz industry but he is a true proponent of transformative instruction in the academy.”