Musician Jon Batiste Takes the Stage for Conversation at Hume-Fogg

Musician and composer Jon Batiste brought his infectious creativity to an auditorium full of Hume-Fogg Magnet High School students Thursday morning, encouraging them to be “perpetually awake” to inspiration and to push themselves beyond their comfort zones.  

Batiste, a seven-time Grammy winner who was the bandleader on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” for seven years, spoke the morning after his first concert at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville. He was interviewed on stage by Paula Wallace, founder and president of Savannah College of Art and Design, or SCAD, where Batiste spoke at commencement ceremonies in Savannah and Atlanta and received an honorary degree in May.  

Students also asked questions, prompting Batiste to talk about the differences between film scoring – he won an Academy Award for Best Original Score for “Soul” – and composing the music he writes for himself; his work on “The Late Show,” which he likened to a “postgraduate degree”; and the source of his joy.  

“It’s a privilege to be alive,” he said. “It’s a great gift to be in the world.” 

Batiste, who plays piano, melodica, and other instruments, urged the students to write “without thinking and without judging” to capture their creative ideas and raw emotions while they’re fresh. He said he has gone back to those kinds of musical sketches as much as 10 years later to turn them into finished material.  

“Just getting it out is very therapeutic,” he said.  

The 38-year-old Louisiana native and the high school students bonded over video games, which he said had helped him learn about musical composition. He also talked about the nature of creativity, saying that writing “is like chasing something you don’t know.”  

“Keeping it fresh is about challenging yourself. You know how sometimes people say you’ve got to get out of your comfort zone? That’s very true with creative processes. You’ve got to find, as you go along, things that maybe feel ambitious to you creatively, that excites you, that you feel like maybe I can’t pull it off, like maybe it won’t work.  

“And explore it, and sometimes it won’t work. And you may go through this process, like a laboratory of experimentation, and then eventually you wind up with something that maybe isn’t even the thing you started off with, but it’s better. That’s the key. It’s an iterative process, constantly pushing it.” 

“The more you can push yourself outside of your comfort zone,” he added, “the more confidence you’ll have. You’ve just got to keep doing it.” 

Before Batiste and Wallace came on stage, Carter Hammonds, a sixth grader at I.T. Creswell Middle School, entertained the audience by playing piano with his own confidence and verve. When Dr. Adrienne Battle, MNPS’s superintendent, later mentioned Carter’s age, many of the Hume-Fogg students gasped – and then applauded heartily.  

Carter also orchestrated the song "This Is Where We Belong" on MNPS's new EP, "I Believe I Belong."