Bill Cessna Trio: Gilmore After Dark

When the day’s last Festival concert ends, Gilmore After Dark begins–Kalamazoo invites you to step out and make an evening of it! Enjoy relaxed musical events featuring Gilmore Festival Fellows, WMU Jazz Faculty, graduates, and students, as well as treasured local talents who are a part of our vibrant music scene here in Kalamazoo, throughout the great state of Michigan, and beyond.

Bill Cessna is a jazz pianist, multi-instrumentalist, and bandleader dedicated to honoring the jazz tradition through expressive improvisation and collaborative performance. As a scholarship student at Columbia College Chicago, he studied with Peter Saxe, Dennis Luxion, Donald Neale, and Sebastian Huydts before becoming an in-demand sideman in Chicago’s jazz scene. Cessna toured Asia with the Roy McGrath Quintet in 2017 and 2019, performing and leading educational clinics at international schools and jazz clubs throughout China and Singapore. He holds a Master’s degree in Jazz Piano from Western Michigan University and performs extensively throughout the Midwest as a sideman and leader. He leads the Bill Cessna Trio, releasing Background Music (2022) and Billy Boy (2024), and continues to explore electronic and vocal projects alongside his jazz work.