Julius Tucker, a senior jazz piano major, has been awarded a 2016 Luminarts Fellowship in jazz improvisation, along with $5,000, from the Luminarts Cultural Foundation.

A dual degree student, Tucker is also pursuing a degree in civil engineering through the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern. At the Bienen School of Music, he studies jazz with Victor Goines, professor and director of the jazz studies program, and Jeremy Kahn, his piano teacher.

Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, Tucker is a graduate of Whitney Young High School and studied piano for many years at the Merit School of Music.

The Luminarts Cultural Foundation’s Jazz Fellowship Competition awards five $5,000 Luminarts Fellowships to jazz musicians through the performance of original, creative, and spontaneously improvised jazz music.

Four Bienen School of Music students also received Luminarts Fellowships this year, each in the classical music category. Learn more.