JB Floyd, a brilliantly versatile pianist, composer, and educator who spent 32 years at the Frost School of Music, where he was a professor and chair of the Keyboard Performance department, passed away on April 26 in his home in Portland, Oregon. He was 96.
Floyd (whose initials stood for James Robert or Jim Bob) was known as an inspired musician in multiple genres, skilled in classical, experimental, jazz, electronic, and improvised music, with a wide-ranging intellect and curiosity. His many awards included a Fulbright, a Ford Foundation Contemporary Music Residency, and four National Endowment for the Arts grants. He was a Yamaha Artist in their classical pianist division.
“JB Floyd was a pillar of the Frost School and an exemplar of the school’s long-held values,” said dean Shelton G. “Shelly” Berg. “He was a superb classical pianist with impeccable technique, a champion of avant-garde classical music, a prolific composer, a true intellectual, and an excellent jazz pianist as well. He effortlessly traversed disparate worlds in music.”
Floyd retired from the Frost School in 2013, after 64 years in college-level music education. Before coming to Miami, he was chairman of keyboard performance at Northern Illinois University from 1962 to 1981. He was also head of the Department of Music and chairman of the Fine Arts Division at the University of Corpus Christi, and was on the music faculty of the University of Kentucky and Sam Houston State University. Born and raised in Tyler, Texas, Floyd earned a Bachelor of Music and Master of Music from the University of North Texas College of Music, and a DMA from Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music.
At the Frost School, Floyd's many talents earned him a place as an unofficial member of the Departments of Studio Music and Jazz, and of Theory and Composition. Among his practical but crucial contributions were adding a full-time piano technician position and arranging for Yamaha to supply pianos for the practice rooms in the Bertha Foster Memorial Building, replacing instruments ruined by the practice of turning off the air conditioning on weekends.
John Hart, an acclaimed jazz guitarist and lecturer at the Frost School who leads the jazz guitar program, became close with Floyd despite their 32-year age difference. “He was constantly listening, composing, searching for the next new thing in his musical journey,” Hart wrote in a tribute to Floyd on Facebook. “I collaborated with him on many recordings of his compositions, all challenging and forward-thinking.”
Floyd is survived by his wife, Pin-I Wu, and his sons Bruce, Douglas, and Christopher.
