We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Bryard Huggins. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Bryard below.

Hi Bryard, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

Up until my senior year of high school, I never considered doing music professionally. It was always just a hobby for me, ever since I was 4 years old. In fact, I wanted to become an architect with my forever interest in design and cities and skylines. It wasn’t until my senior year of high school when it came time to apply to colleges did I decide to pursue music full time. I recognized that I was given this gift by purpose and design, it was more than a hobby. I felt I had to act on it and continue it into the real world, and I am so glad I did. What a blessing to be able to work in an industry doing something that only comes natural to you.

Bryard, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I think I was always destined to do music, even in the womb. My mother – a classically trained pianist – used to play when she was pregnant with me. Even after I was born she would play Beethoven, specifically his Pathetique Sonata: Mvmt 1, a 2-3 year old Bryard peering over into the piano fascinated by the dampers and the hammers. You couldn’t keep me away from a piano! My parents also introduced me at a very early age to some of the greatest artists and musicians of our time. I remember particularly listening to Vince Guaraldi’s “A Charlie Brown Christmas” album riding in the car, around the house, etc. This was my first intro to jazz piano. When I was around 4, my father – a talented singer from a family of vocalists and recording artists – bought my mother a grand piano for Christmas for our home. A few weeks later, they were in the kitchen and suddenly heard the piano playing, melodies being picked out, what sounded like a very VERY stripped down form of “Linus and Lucy”. Coming around the corner they discovered a 4 year old me, legs swinging too short for the piano bench, at the piano playing melodies and trying to imitate the music from that Charlie Brown Christmas album. Recognizing this was definitely a God-given gift that was in me, they turned away suggestions by others to send in tapes to people like Oprah and the Today Show – instead, they protected my gift and helped me nurture it by placing me with my first piano teacher in kindergarten. After one lesson, she told my parents “there’s nothing this little old lady can teach him, he needs more advanced training”, referring us to an instructor at Belmont University where I remained for the next near 10 years. As I moved into high school I started transitioning into jazz and improv (something I had been leaning towards even in my almost 10 years of classical training – so much so to where my classical instructor would assign me pieces to play “once, as written” then “now Bryard, play your arrangement” – these were the simplest songs but I always had an affinity for improvisation, arranging, and my own compositions (I wrote my first song at the age of 6). My 4 years of jazz piano during high school greatly prepared me for college, as well as the release of my debut album ‘Artistic Touch’ (2011) when I was a sophomore in high school. Fast forward over 10 years from this point, I have since been blessed to release 5 more studio albums, many singles, compose music for film and TV and multimedia, start my own indie record label to help aspiring artists break into the music business, and tour with the Empress of Soul Gladys Knight.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

For me, the most rewarding aspect of being an artist is seeing how my music makes people feel better – seeing how what I do breaks chains, brings joy, uplifts others. This is what music does. My career is built on the Hans Christian Andersen phrase ‘where words fail, music speaks.’ I’m so blessed to be part of that universal language of music, that escape that many people can run to when life throws you for a loop. During COVID and the lock down with all of my opportunities shuttered, I decided to host monthly 1-hour long, free virtual concerts on Facebook LIVE just to bring some much needed light. These concerts have garnered thousands of views and the responses I received from the public were just so inspiring. I am a person who gives more than he receives – that’s just who I am. I put so much into my music that seeing how it touches people is the gift that keeps on giving. I don’t need the money sometimes, I don’t care about it. You can’t put a price on saving souls. I’m happy to give people that escape and seeing the reaction just further proves to me, someone who several times has questioned whether or not I should be doing music despite all of this, that I am right where I belong.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

*cue the testimony* haha.

In 2015, while I was between my sophomore and junior year at College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati (CCM), I was diagnosed with an autoimmune condition called ITP (idiopathic thrombocytopenia purpura), a condition that causes your immune system to attack the platelets in your blood. Low platelets can be very dangerous as platelets help blood to clot in your body. When you have little to none, you’re at a higher risk of excessive bleeding from the extremities, the mouth, or even the brain. To put it in perspective, the average person has 140k – 500k platelets. In the summer of 2015, mine dropped to a risky 2k. I spent the majority of my summer dealing with doctors appointment after doctors appointment, blood test after blood test, and physicians trying to figure out the best treatment options for my condition. It became so harrowing that I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to go back to college for my junior year. To make a long story not so long, I did end up going back for what was academically the hardest year of college in the midst of the hardest year of my life. I would go an early morning lab test at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center…to class…then to a recording session…then back to the hospital for an IV infusion of immunoglobulins…then back to a late class…then home. Here’s where you don’t want to miss your shout: BUT GOD. I walked away from that semester with a 4.0 GPA and I conceived and ultimately released a gospel EP of inspiring solo piano worship songs. Despite the medical trials, despite the overwhelming side effects of the medication I was taking that sometimes left me unable to walk to class, despite the constant disappointments of fluctuating blood levels…I still graduated on time two years later with honors. Look at God!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.bryardhuggins.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bryardofficial/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@bryardofficial