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BIO
"Simply beautiful Cat. You can feel it in every note he plays" -QUINCY JONES
Justin Kauflin is an award-winning “jazz pianist who favors a clarity of touch and ideas...his writing is balanced tempering post-bop intricacies with the assurances of the gospel church” -New York Times. After losing his sight at the age of 11, Kauflin gravitated towards playing jazz piano, despite having a background in classical violin & piano. He received top honors at jazz festivals across the U.S. and began performing jazz professionally by age 14, most notably with the Jae Sinnett Trio. In 2008, he graduated summa cum laude from William Paterson University, NJ where he studied with his heroes, Mulgrew Miller and Harold Mabern; and was mentored by and performed with the legendary trumpet/flugelhorn player, Clark Terry (2010 Grammy winner for Lifetime Achievement in Jazz). He continued to garner numerous awards such as the VSA International Young Soloist Award, selected as a semifinalist in the 2012 Thelonious Monk International Piano Competition, and voted “Jazz Artist of the Year” in VEER Magazine.
Kauflin is featured in, as well as composed the film score for, the Oscar short-listed documentary, "Keep On Keepin' On.” Justin shares Clark Terry's passion for jazz education through the Keep On Keepin' On Jazz Outreach and as a U.S. Department of State Jazz Ambassador. He has been an adjunct faculty member/adjudicator for the Monterey Jazz Festival, Centrum Port Townsend Jazz, Vail Jazz Workshop, Lionel Hampton Jazz and Notre Dame Jazz with John Clayton and Jazz Maui with Katie Thiroux.
As leader, player, composer and producer, Justin Kauflin has released 10 recordings to date and collaborated on 30+ albums. In 2015, Justin had the incredible honor of performing on Oscar Peterson's personal Bosendorfer for "Oscar, with Love," along with 16 world-class pianists and in 2024 Justin released his first vinyl live recording, "Justin Kauflin Trio Live at Sam First."
During the pandemic shutdown, Justin focused on film scoring and sound design, completing projects for full-length documentaries, commercials and trailers.
He has been on faculty at The Governor's School for the Arts in Norfolk, VA since 2022. Justin also initiated the Jazz Night GSA Concert Series, which features prominent jazz musicians from the region and beyond, so that students and the wider community can appreciate live music in a concert setting, free of charge.
Justin Kauflin is dedicated to creating and sharing music that excites, energizes and nourishes the soul. He is signed for management by impresario and music icon, Quincy Jones and is a Yamaha Artist.
PROMO PHOTOS
ACCESSIBILITY
"Being blind is only a part of who we are ... it should never be something that defines us" -JK
Justin Kauflin was born with a condition that affected both eyes called proliferative exudative retinopathy, rendering him totally blind by age 11.
In his transition from 'low-vision' to total blindness, Justin received adaptive services provided by the Virginia Beach public school system. From elementary through high school, itinerant vision teachers enabled his attendance alongside his sighted peers in classes ranging from Japanese to AP Physics as well as 3 forms of Braille (literary, math and music), O & M (orientation & mobility) skills with the white cane, and vocational rehabilitation provided by the DBVI (VA Dept. for the Blind and Vision Impaired).
The NJ Commission for the Blind provided a few days of O&M to navigate the campus of William Paterson University. Throughout his years there, the National Library Service of the Library of Congress in Washington, DC sent brailled classical music scores upon request, free of charge. Justin utilized Dancing Dots and Avid Sibelius to write and score music for assignments and provide charts to his Trio.
Programs such as the Kennedy Center VSA advocates disability awareness around the world, and continues to promote artists with disabilities. They, in conjunction with the U.S. Department of State, sent Justin as a Jazz Ambassador to share his experiences as well as perform for Jazz Week in Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia.
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) enables travel by providing assistance between airport gates, ADA-abiding car services, allowances for a PCA (Personal Care Assistant), and most recently, the Hampton Roads Para Transit service to and from work. The ADA also opened the door to restaurant- and movie-going with braille menus, allowances for guide dogs, and DVS (Descriptive Video Services). And, at The Seeing Eye in Morristown, NJ, Justin was matched and trained for a month 24/7 with Candy, his sweet guide dog for an incredible 12 years.
Advancements in assistive technology has allowed vision-impaired/blind individuals to be on slightly more even ground with their sighted colleagues. The Apple iPhone has built-in accessibility features such as screen readers, voice-to-text capabilities and GPS, which are extremely useful, if not life-saving! Recent tech innovations, specifically with Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol allows Justin to finally utilize software he has owned for over a decade, launching a whole new world to explore producing sound designs, film scores and music to professional standards.
RESOURCES for the blind
QUOTES
“Make sure you have enough time to absorb all the beautiful things in Justin’s talent…his timing, rhythm, technique and exactness…See if you’ll agree with me. He’s a monster on the piano! And, one of the greatest people I know” -CLARK TERRY
“What I liked about Justin was he’d done his homework. God gives you the right brain, everyone’s got emotion, but you gotta practice, you gotta put the left-brain work in. You need musicality AND discipline.” -QUINCY JONES in The New Yorker
“Simply beautiful cat…you can feel it in every note he plays” -QUINCY JONES
“There are so many beautiful things about Justin's playing -- the best being his spirit and spirituality. It's commendable he has that kind of relationship with the instrument and the music. He is accomplishing great things!” -MULGREW MILLER
"What separates American jazz pianist Justin Kauflin from his rivals is the soulfulness of his repertoire. This is a musician who wants to do more than make you admire his virtuosity" -THE TIMES
"Kauflin's strengths are a concern for touch and dynamics, a willingness to explore harmonic depth, swing, and a romantic's experiential hunger toward repertory. He can take a simple motif like the Beatle's 'Day in the Life' and make a swinging concerto out of it" -LOS ANGELES TIMES
"Kauflin is without a doubt a virtuoso; he plays with a compelling and soulful passion, and definitely worth catching live" -JAZZ IN EUROPE
"...the exquisite nature of Justin Kauflin’s playing, so wise beyond his years and so wonderfully articulate that it is bordering on genius. Dedication is a testament to sheer brilliance of technique and unbridled imagination." -WORLD MUSIC REPORT (Dedication)
"Meanwhile Mr Kauflin wishes to – and succeeds in – opening our minds to his world that is “extremely colourful and textured.” And we ought to consider it a privilege to be admitted into this place where the music glitters as if by the magic, glimpsed by moonlight that is somehow transformed from something ink-dark, into a vividly colourful landscape. For in sheer colour, texture and variety, in the depth of characterisation and in the exceptional range and refinement of his pianism, Mr Kauflin here imparts an enormous power and stature to this music. With buoyant, aristocratic grace and almost insolently effortless virtuosity he makes this music come alive for us." -JAZZDAGAMA (Coming Home)