About

Edward Bilous, composer, artistic director, and Founding Director of the Center for Innovation in the Arts at the Juilliard School.

Creative Work

As a creative artist, Bilous has composed music for film, tv, dance and theater. He has also created and directed many interdisciplinary and multimedia works. Bilous is currently developing A Story of Awe, a multimedia concert and collaborative arts project featuring an interdisciplinary ensemble of actors, musical soloists, a digital sound artist, and dancers all using interactive performance technology.  A Story of Awe will premiere in 2021as a mixed-reality experience and live multimedia concert.

Other recent projects include Basetrack Live, a multimedia music-theater production hailed by the New York Times as one of the “top ten shows of 2014”, SACRED a multimedia concert and developed in collaboration with New York Public Television, and Emperor of All Maladies, a PBS TV series helmed by Executive Producer Ken Burns.

Recently, Bilous directed Cracked Orlando, a multimedia opera by Jonathan Dawe.  He also served as the Artistic Director for the National World War I Centennial Commission created by Former President Barack Obama which featured Former President Jimmy Carter. 

During his long career as a composer and music producer, Bilous has collaborated on many projects that foster understanding and social awareness including the documentary films Scottsboro (2001 Academy Award nominee) and Portraits of Grief – A Tribute to the Victims of the September 11th Tragedy (New York Times Television) and Forgiveness (PBS).

His long relationship with Pilobolus has yielded 5 collaborations including On The Nature of Things and Night of The Dark Moon. Other compositions include Lucid Dreams written for the American Composers Orchestra and Mission Eternity for Beyond the Machine.

Innovation in the Arts and Education

Bilous is the Founding Director of the Center for Innovation in the Arts at the Juilliard School. Throughout his career in education, he developed programs that spark innovation and creative exploration, instill an appreciation of diverse artistic traditions, forge links between artforms and disciplines, and inspire artists and teachers to become voices of positive change in our dynamic and interconnected world. 

He began his career in arts education as one of the first teaching-artists at the newly created Lincoln Center Institute. Together, with philosopher Maxine Greene, and colleagues in dance, theater and the visual arts, he helped to create the basic cannon of aesthetic education practices that continue to inspire students and teachers around the world.

He joined the faculty of the Juilliard School in 1984 and developed many of the institution’s most innovative programs including the Arts and Education Program, the Center for Innovation in the Arts, InterArts and  Beyond the Machine – A Festival of Interdisciplinary and Multimedia Art. In 2012, he was awarded the William Schuman Scholars Chair by the Juilliard School in recognition of his life-long contributions to arts education.

Additionally, Bilous served on the National Endowment for the Arts panel for Learning In the Arts and was the Senior Education Advisor in the creation of The Academy – A Program of the Juilliard School, Carnegie Hall and the Weil Institute.

Bilous is a leading advocate for the integration of the arts and STEM subjects. He is a frequent speaker, consultant and facilitator in artistic, educational and corporate communities. His workshops feature immersive, hands-on experiences that explore new ways of working and creating with emphasis on innovative program design, interdisciplinary collaborations and curriculum design. He has been a key-note speaker at MIT Hacking Arts, ASU+GSV Summit and his recent TEDx talk was titled “Nurturing Creative Intelligence Through the Arts”. 

Dr. Bilous received his MM and DMA from the Juilliard School, composition with Elliott Carter and Vincent Persichetti and B.M. from the Manhattan School of Music, composition with Charles Wuorinen and Elias Tannenbaum. He also studied privately with Krzysztof Penderecki and Roger Sessions.

He lives in New York City with his wife, composer and Juilliard professor Michelle DiBucci and their 16-year old daughter.