A bio is a creative’s marketing piece, it can be the piece that makes someone excited to follow you through your career. The difficult part is that each discipline has their own unique requirements or styles for a bio, so I recommend starting by doing your research. What do the bios look like for your faculty? What do they look like for someone in your field you admire? Reference your professional organizations for guidance as well. Some themes do exist across the board, and you can ask yourself a few questions as you think about writing your bio:
- Who is your audience?
- Is this going on your website?
- Is this going into your press kit?
- Are you applying for a grant or an academic position?
- Are you submitting it for a performance in a program?
- What is required? A short, long, or medium bio?
Short Bio Example:
Anatomy of Angels, is one that strives to deconstruct the often spiritual process of improvisation-an attempt to capture and define "the intangible nature of playing and the communication of how we create these moments that give us a glimpse of another reality is preserved here in startlingly intimate clarity, sans retakes, edits or overdubs.
Within Batiste's ideas is a love for, and understanding of, jazz history in full, a result of the comprehensive education he recieved as a promising talent in his native New Orleans. At the Vanguard, he cast his net wide-from the jazz canon, to the joyful, audience-inclusive Social Music that helped to make him a jazz star, to his developing desire to incorporate avant-garde approaches in his music. "All jazz and all styles of music are important," he says, thinking out loud about what he wanted to offer his audience last fall. "I was really trying to present the spectrum of the music the way that I was taught when I was 11 or 12 and started playing jazz."
Listen to Anatomy of Angels out now.
- Jon Batiste
Long Bio Example:
Alicia Keys is a 15-time Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter/producer, an accomplished actress, a New York Times best-selling author, an entrepreneur and a powerful force in the worls of philanthropy and in the global fight against HIV and AIDS.
On November 4th, 2016, Keys released her powerful and critically-acclaimed new sixth studio album, HERE, on RCA Records. Offering an honest glimpse into what matters most to Keys, the artist shines a light on the sonic soulfulness and stories from New York, the city that raised her. As an accompanying visual story to HERE, Keys also released a short-film entitled "the Gospel" inspired by the genesis of songs written by Alicia Keys.
Keys became a Coach on NBC's "The Voice" for its 11th season, alongside Miley Cyrus, Adam Levine, and Blake Shelton. Keys returned as a Coach on the hit show's 12th season with Gwen Stefani, Adam Levine, and Blake Shelton.
As a devoted and influential activist, in September 2014, Keys launched We Are Here, a movement that empowers the global community around a host of issues and initiatives building a better world where all people are heard, respected, equal, and treated with dignity.
Alicia is also the co-founder of Keep a Child Alive (KCA), a non-profit organization that partners with grass-roots organications to combat that physical, social, and economic impact of HIV on children, their families and their communities in Africa and India.
Keys made her directorial debut for Lifetime's Five and most recently served as Executive Producer of the critically-acclaimed film The Inevitable Defeat of Mister & Pete. In 2011, she made her producorial debut with Lydia R. Diamond's play Stick Fly for the Cort Theater, which Keys also composed the original music for.
Key currently resides in the New York city area with her husband, producer Swizz Beatz, and their children.
- Alicia Keys