Hobgood, Robaire, & Schnelle

Contemporary virtuoso pianist, collaborator, composer, arranger, producer, educator, Yamaha Artist, multiple Grammy® nominee and 2010 Grammy® winner Laurence Hobgood has enjoyed a multi-faceted and dynamic career. Recognized for his dazzling piano technique and his signature style of composing and arranging, he's been transporting audiences both at home and abroad for over thirty years.

Coming from an arts family (his father was a celebrated teacher of theater and his mother an accomplished Appalachian folk artist), Laurence started playing piano before he could walk. He began formal classical study in first grade in Dallas, Texas, where his dad was chairman of the Theater Department at Southern Methodist University. When his father accepted the equivalent position at University of Illinois the family moved to Urbana; this is when Laurence transitioned to studying jazz -- and never looked back.

It would be an understatement to say that the jazz/music scene at U. of I.…