Roy Eaton (born May 14, 1930) is an American pianist and advertising creative. He is cited as the first black American prominent in the field of advertising.

Life

The son of Jamaican immigrants, Eaton grew up in Harlem. His father was a mechanic and his mother a governess He took up classical piano when he was six and shortly after, in 1937, played at

Carnegie Hall Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street (Manhattan), 56th and 57th Street (Manhatta ...

, winning gold medal in a Music Education League competition. In June 1950, he won the first

Kosciuszko Foundation The Kosciuszko Foundation is a charitable foundation based in New York City. It was created by Stephen Mizwa to fund programs that promote Polish-American intellectual and artistic exchange. History The Polish American Scholarship Committee was ...

Chopin Award. He made his concert debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra performing Chopin’s F Minor Concerto under George Schick in 1951. He was reengaged to perform Beethoven’s 4th the following season, and also made his New York

Town Hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses ...

debut in 1952. His education included the

City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a public university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York City. Founded in 1847, Cit ...

, the

Manhattan School of Music The Manhattan School of Music (MSM) is a private music conservatory in New York City. The school offers bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in the areas of classical and jazz performance and composition, as well as a bachelor's in mu ...

, the University of Zurich, and Yale; he subsequently became a music instructor at the Manhattan School of Music. He was drafted for two years into the U.S. Army at the time of the Korean War, serving all of that time in a hospital radio station, WFDH in Fort Dix, NJ where he wrote and produced radio and TV programs. In 1955, on leaving the Army, Eaton was taken on as a copywriter and composer at Young & Rubicam, and in his first two years created 75% of all the music produced there. In 1957, physicians gave him a 10 percent chance of surviving an automobile accident in Utah that left him comatose and killed his wife of under one year. He worked almost three decades in advertising, with Young & Rubicam, Benton & Bowles and later his own company, Roy Eaton Music Inc. In 1986, he returned to regular concert performance at Alice Tully Hall, in Lincoln Center with a unique program format, "The Meditative Chopin", a subsequent "The Meditative Chopin II" in 1987 and a third recital in the same hall in 1992. Eaton is a long-time practitioner of Transcendental Meditation. Beginning in 1968. He was inducted into the Advertising Hall of Fame in 2010. After suffering a stroke in 2017, Roy has continued to perform.

References

External links

Official websiteMeet the Ad Industry Pioneer Behind Some Very Memorable Jingles
Fox News {{DEFAULTSORT:Eaton, Roy 1930 births 20th-century African-American musicians 20th-century American male musicians 20th-century American pianists 20th-century classical pianists 21st-century African-American musicians 21st-century American male musicians 21st-century American pianists 21st-century classical pianists American advertising executives African-American classical pianists American classical pianists American male classical pianists United States Army personnel of the Korean War Living people People from Harlem