After a Saturday evening concert, Grammy Award-winning musician Jon Batiste held a masterclass for students and faculty in the Lindemann Performing Arts Center on Sunday.
Following the masterclass, Batiste participated in a conversation at the Perry and Marty Granoff Center for the Creative Arts alongside his wife, Emmy Award-winning writer Suleika Jaouad. The event preceded a screening of “American Symphony,” a 2023 documentary chronicling Batiste’s efforts to compose a symphony while Jaouad underwent treatment for leukemia.
In the masterclass, which was attended by a few dozen students and faculty members, Batiste addressed topics ranging from institutional funding of the arts to the intersection between acting and music. He also reflected on his time working on Pixar’s “Soul.”
For all artists, Batiste stressed the importance of self-care: “Your whole life, you’re going to be giving — giving on stage, giving to audiences, giving to your craft,” he said. “You’ve got to figure out how to get replenished.”
Batiste also advised the attendees on where to find creative inspiration. “Steal from everybody that you can,” he said. “It showed me a lot of things were possible.”
When asked how to navigate the balance between creating for oneself versus for financial success, Batiste told attendees that they “can make anything (they) want to make.”
“The biggest lesson I’ve learned is that people forget failure and success,” he added, telling students to create “based on what’s ‘true north’ for you.”
In a moment of collaboration and spontaneity, Batiste invited all the musicians and singers in attendance to join him on stage at the end of the class to perform songs together. While some students sang, one student shared the piano with Batiste himself. Each student was given a chance to shine.
After the masterclass, Batiste and Jaouad engaged in a conversation moderated by Lisa Biggs, assistant professor of arts and Africana studies. Biggs began the discussion by recalling a question students asked Batiste during the masterclass: How do you make a life after college?
In response, Jaouad recalled her own anxiety in facing life after college. She said that instead of searching for purpose, students should embrace curiosity.
Batiste echoed this sentiment, adding that the coming-of-age that college students experience is both “singular and universal” — while each student takes their own unique journey post-graduation, they all experience similar struggles simultaneously, he said.
In lieu of specific advice, he quoted from Joni Mitchell’s “Down to You”: “‘It all comes down to you,’” he said.
But shortly after Jaouad graduated from college, she was diagnosed with leukemia. Her world changed overnight, she said.
Although Jaouad and Batiste met as teenagers at band camp, upon hearing of Jaouad’s diagnosis, Batiste and his band played a concert in her hospital room — something she cited as an example of “the power of music and the creative arts to heal and gather.”
Filming commenced for “American Symphony” in 2022, shortly after Jaouad learned that her cancer had returned. Jaouad noted that it was difficult for both of them to be vulnerable on camera.
During Sunday’s conversation, Batiste described the film as “an assessment of America” and “a celebration of culture.”
“American Symphony” has received two nominations for the 67th Grammy Awards, airing this Sunday.
