Carolyn Wilkins, 2011 December 19
Carolyn Wilkins, jazz pianist, vocalist, and Berklee College of Music professor, describes her book Damn Near White: An African American Family’s Rise from Slavery to Bittersweet Success as it pertains to her family history and her writing process; her experiences growing up in Chicago; and her music background. She recalls her early career as a Black woman trying to find work with symphonies—including her time with the Singapore Symphony—and her experiences performing as a jazz pianist and singer in Boston starting in the eighties. Wilkins also discusses the importance of flexibility and changes in the music field; classes taught at Berklee, past students and colleagues, and teaching style; and her experiences with church music.
Jazz pianist and vocalist Carolyn Wilkins (1952- ) was raised in Chicago and began playing percussion around the age of 13. She earned a bachelor’s degree in music performance in percussion from Oberlin College (1973) and a graduate degree from Eastman School of Music in orchestral percussion (1978). After graduate school, Wilkins played for six months in the Singapore Symphony before returning to the U.S. She lived in Seattle prior to moving to Boston in the mid-eighties, where she switched to jazz piano and later vocals. She joined the Berklee College of Music faculty in 1989 in the Ensemble Department, specializing in instructing small jazz bands, as well as ear training, basic keyboard, and the “Artistry, Creativity, and Inquiry” seminar. Wilkins also led the group SpiritJazz and played at various churches around the Boston area. She has designed and presented numerous “concert-lectures” to introduce audiences to the history of jazz and its composers, and has authored multiple books in several genres, including memoir, nonfiction, and murder mystery.
