Jazz pianist, composer and Grammy-winning arranger Bill Cunliffe, known for his innovative and swinging style, kicks off the new year for Lakeshore Music at Ravenscroft. His program will feature the music of Bill Evans in the first half, and in the second, tributes to famous film composers, such as Leonard Bernstein, David Raksin and Frank Loesser.

Cunliffe’s roots as a pianist and arranger trace to the Buddy Rich Big Band. Along the way, Cunliffe also worked with Frank Sinatra before establishing himself as a solo artist and bandleader with more than a dozen albums under his name.

He wrote the score for the film “On the Shoulders of Giants,” Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s homage to the Harlem Rens basketball team of the 1920s and ’30s. His soundtrack was nominated for NAACP Image Award Best Album.

Cunliffe was awarded a Grammy for Best Instrumental Arrangement for “West Side Story Medley,” on the album “Resonance Big Band Plays Tribute to Oscar Peterson” (Resonance Records, 2009). He has received five Grammy nominations and two Emmy nominations. He was 1989 winner of the Thelonious Monk International Piano Competition, and in 2010 the Los Angeles Jazz Society honored him with its Composer/Arranger Award. Last year, he was elected to the Cincinnati Jazz Hall of Fame.

He will be joined by former Bill Evans drummer, Joe La Barbera, and the wonderful bassist Darek Oles, who recently toured with Pat Metheny.