Skip Wilkins

Skip Wilkins (associate professor) directs the Lafayette College Jazz Ensemble and teaches music theory and jazz courses. He has performed often and recorded with Phil Woods, and performed with David Liebman, David Sánchez, Stanley Turrentine, Bobby Watson, Plas Johnson, Mark Murphy, Clark Terry, Conte Candoli and Peter Erskine.  His 2014 CD Release is Trio WUH: Live at Trutnov, featuring his working European group with whom he has performed more than 150 times – and counting. In 2013, he released Czech Dreams on NewPortLine Records. His 2012 CD Release is Father & Son on SteepleChase LookOut Records (Denmark), which features Wilkins, his son Daniel, and his New York Trio.  With his New York Trio, he has two previous Dreambox Media CDs:  After (2011), and I Concentrate on You (2011). He has an international release, Frydlant Nights, on the Czech Radio Prague label; four earlier CDs on Dreambox Media, The Paint-Peeler (2008), Skip Wilkins Solo—Live at Lafayette (2007), Skip Wilkins Quintet: Volume II (2007), and Volume I (2006); and two earlier CDs with flutist Jill Allen, including Petty Theft (2001, Cathexis Records), which features saxophonist David Liebman.

Wilkins performs frequently throughout Europe, spending his months outside the classroom based in Prague, Czech Republic.  Each summer since 2007, he has led the vocal jazz classes at the Karel Velebny Summer Jazz Workshop in Frýdlant, Czech Republic, and for four years the Jazz Atelier at the Summer Choral Workshop in Lomnice u Tišnova.  For two years he taught at the International Jazz Workshop Kryoneri in Greece. Internationally, he tours, records, and teaches regularly in the Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italy and Greece, playing major festivals and jazz clubs.  He collaborates regularly in Europe with numerous European musicians, including Franta Uhlíř, Jaromír Helešic, Libor Šmoldas, Tomáš Baroš, Tomáš Hobzek, Maruška Puttnerová, Rosťa Fraš, and Josef Fečo, and he is often joined by Americans Neil Wetzel and Gary Rissmiller.  His children, Emily and Daniel, also tour and teach with him in Europe.

In the U.S., he performs and records with Daniel Wilkins, Emily Wilkins, Scott Lee, Jeff Hirshfield, Bill Goodwin, Tony Marino, Tom Kozic, Neil Wetzel, Paul Kendall, Gary Rissmiller, and Phil Woods & the COTA Festival Orchestra, among many others.