Department of Music

Prince Wells

Prince Wells joined the Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) faculty in 1989, and was appointed Assistant Professor in 1996. He has served as Director of the Music Business Program, Director of the Black Studies Program, Chair of the Music Department, and President of the SIUE Black Faculty and Staff Association. He currently serves as faculty advisor for the African Student Association. Wells has taught freshman Music Theory, Introduction to Music History and Literature, and other such diverse courses as Foundations of Music, Jazz History, Black Music in America, African American Music and the Struggle For Freedom, as well as developing and co-teaching Music: Art and Science (an interdisciplinary course that examines music as both an art and a science). His most recent research focuses on the Quadrivium, the relationship between arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy.

Mr. Wells received his baccalaureate degree in Music Education from SIUE and completed his master’s degree in Afro-American Music and Trumpet at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. He also studied trumpet with internationally known trumpeter Clark Terry, noted instructor Carmine Caruso, as well as Gary Smith of the St. Louis Symphony. Under the tutelage of the internationally known composer, music theorist, and MacArthur Fellow George Russell, Wells earned certification in the Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization, and currently holds the distinction of being one of only five persons in the United States with that certification. He has conducted numerous workshops, lectures, and demonstrations on the Lydian Chromatic Concept and related topics.

During his career Mr. Wells has been awarded a Jazz Artist Marketing Fellowship from the Mid-America Arts Alliance, a National Endowment for the Arts Travel/Study grant, and several other awards and honors. He was featured in a photo exhibit and subsequent book titled, Lift Every Voice and Sing: The St. Louis African-American Heritage Project as one of the 100 most influential St. Louis African-Americans of the twentieth century. He was also recently included in the exhibit “#1 in Civil Rights/ The African American Freedom Struggle in St. Louis” at the Missouri History Museum in St. Louis.

Mr. Wells is well known in the St. Louis area as a jazz trumpeter and band leader. He has served as director of the Jazz Edge Big Band, the Black Music Society’s Jazz Repertory Ensemble, the Grand Center Jazz Ensemble, the Jazz Band of St. Louis Community College at Forest Park, the Black Music Society’s Jazz Lab Band, Harris Stowe State University Brass Ensemble, and performed as trumpeter while helping manage a brass quintet named Brass Alive! He has also performed as a member of numerous prestigious jazz ensembles throughout the St. Louis metropolitan area. Mr. Wells was founder and served as President of the Black Music Society of Missouri and has been affiliated with a number of arts organizations, including the Mid-America Arts Alliance, Regional Arts Commission, Missouri Arts Council, and the Missouri Performing Traditions Advisory Council. In February 2000, he released his CD, Tales from the Void.