Herbie Hancock Named Harvard University's 2014 Norton Professor of Poetry

Posted on January 18, 2014

Grammy winning pianist and composer Herbie Hancock has been named Harvard University's 2014 Norton Professor of Poetry. Harvard University says Hancock will give six lectures in a series called, "The Ethics of Jazz" in February and March of this year. A list of his upcoming Harvard lectures can be found here.

Homi Bhabha, director of the Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard, said in the annoucement, "It is a great privilege to welcome Herbie Hancock as the Norton Professor. His unsurpassed contribution to the history of music has revolutionized our understanding of the ways in which the arts transform our civic consciousness and our spiritual aspirations. It would be no exaggeration to say that he has defined cultural innovation in each decade of the last half century."

Hancock received a Kennedy Center Honor in December 2013. He has won 14 Grammy awards. He is currently the Creative Chair for Jazz for the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association and Institute Chairman of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz. Hancock has also taught classes at UCLA.