Mr. Marsalis’s rich body of compositions includes Sweet Release, Jazz: Six Syncopated Movements, Jump Start, Citi Movement/Griot New York, At the Octoroon Balls, and In This House, On This Morning and Big Train. In 1997, Mr. Marsalis became the first jazz artist to be awarded the prestigious Pulitzer Prize in music, for his oratorio Blood on the Fields, which was commissioned by Jazz at Lincoln Center. In 1999, he released eight new recordings in his unprecedented "Swinging into the 21st" series, and premiered several new compositions, including the ballet Them Twos, for a June 1999 collaboration with the New York City Ballet. That same year he premiered the monumental work All Rise, commissioned and performed by the New York Philharmonic along with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and the Morgan State University Choir in December 1999. Sony Classical released All Rise on CD October 1, 2002. Recorded on September 14 and 15, 2001 in Los Angeles in those tense days following 9/11, All Rise features the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra along with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Morgan State University Choir, the Paul Smith Singers and the Northridge Singers.

On March 6, 2007 he released From the Plantation to the Penitentiary on Blue Note Records, the follow up CD to his Blue Note Records releases The Magic Hour and Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson, the companion soundtrack recording to Ken Burns’ PBS documentary of the great African-American boxer, and Wynton Marsalis: Live at The House Of Tribes.

Mr. Marsalis is also an internationally respected teacher and spokesman for music education, and has received honorary doctorates from dozens of universities and colleges throughout the U.S. He conducts educational programs for students of all ages and hosts the popular Jazz for Young People® concerts produced by Jazz at Lincoln Center.

Mr. Marsalis has also been featured in the video series Marsalis on Music and the radio series Making the Music. He has also written three books: Sweet Swing Blues on the Road in collaboration with photographer Frank Stewart, Jazz in the Bittersweet Blues of Life with Carl Vigeland and recently released To a Young Musician: Letters from the Road with Selwyn Seyfu Hinds, published by Random House in 2004. In October 2005, Candlewick Press released Marsalis's Jazz ABZ, an A to Z collection of 26 poems celebrating jazz greats, illustrated by poster artist Paul Rogers.

In 2001, Mr. Marsalis was appointed Messenger of Peace by Mr. Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations, and he has also been designated cultural ambassador to the United States of America by the U.S. State Department through their CultureConnect program. Mr. Marsalis serves on Lieutenant Governor Landrieu’s National Advisory Board for Culture, Recreation and Tourism, a national advisory board to guide the Lieutenant Governor’s administration’s plans to rebuild Louisiana’s tourism and cultural economies. He has also been named to the Bring New Orleans Back Commission, New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin’s initiative to help rebuild New Orleans culturally, socially, economically, and uniquely for every citizen. He helped lead the effort to construct Jazz at Lincoln Center's new home – Frederick P. Rose Hall – the first education, performance, and broadcast facility devoted to jazz, which opened in October 2004.

Prior to this he was the President of AEA Consulting, a company of that specializes in strategic, operational and facilities planning for the cultural sector, which he founded in 1990. Clients include the National Gallery (London), the National Gallery of Victoria (Melbourne), the Victoria and Albert Museum (London), the British Museum (London), the J Paul Getty Trust (Los Angeles), The Drawing Center (New York), The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston), the Museum of Fine Arts (Budapest), El Museo del Barrio (New York), New York City Opera, San Francisco Opera, the Academy of American Poets (New York), PEN American Center (New York), the Frick Collection, Poets House (New York), the Ford Foundation (New York), the Pew Charitable Trusts (Philadelphia) , The Cleveland Foundation, the National Museums Directors Conference (London), SFJazz (San Francisco), the Royal Shakespeare Company (Stratford, England), Conaculta (Mexico City), the Cyprus Cultural Foundation and the Arts Council, England.

Between 1986 and 1990, Adrian was Executive Director of The Conran Foundation, where he was responsible for planning and managing the establishment of the Design Museum, London, which opened on Butlers Wharf in 1989. Between 1981 and 1986, he was a civil servant in the UK Treasury and the Cabinet Office, where he worked on service-wide efficiency reviews and privatisation, and for two years ran the office of the Economic Secretary to the Treasury (the Minister responsible for monetary policy and regulation of the banking sector). From 1980 to 1982, he was a College Lecturer in Politics at University College, Oxford.

Adrian has been a member of the Governing Council of the National Museums and Galleries of Wales (1996 - 2000) and a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects' Architecture Centre Committee (1997 - 2001), the Kaufman Center, New York, (2002-2007) and Pathé Pictures, a film production company in London. He is a member of the Getty Leadership Institute's Advisory Board. He is an advisor to and National Arts Strategies, the Non Profit Finance Fund and the Clore Duffield Foundation.

Adrian Ellis has written and lectured extensively on issues affecting the cultural sector and writes a column for The Art Newspaper. He received a B.A. Hons (First Class) and M. A. in Politics Philosophy and Economics from University College, Oxford and has lived in New York since 1998.

Mrs. Schiff is the Managing Director and owner of After Nine Music, a label specializing in jazz and easy listening. She has been a member of the Board of Directors for Jazz at Lincoln Center since 1995 and has served on the Executive Committee and other committees. Her numerous board affiliations include The Animal Medical Center, The Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services, and President of the Youth Counseling League.

In addition, she has been both the Chairman and Honorary Chairman of The Art Show presented by The Art Dealers Association of America for the benefit of The Henry Street Settlement and has served on the boards of the Visiting Nurse Service of New York and Georgetown University. She is also a voting member of NARAS (The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences).

Mrs. Schiff received her education from The Masters School and Briarcliff College. She is married to investment banker and Wildlife Conservation Society Chairman David T. Schiff, with whom she has three children, Andrew, David, and Ashley (also a member of the Jazz at Lincoln Center board).