‘Forget Me Nots’
Patrice Rushen and Friends

Award winning musician, composer and educator, chair of the Popular Music program at USC Thornton.

Patrice Rushen is an award-winning musician, composer and one of the most sought-after artists in the music industry. She is a classically trained pianist who originally found success in the ‘70s and ‘80s with her signature fusion of jazz, pop and R&B. During this era, she composed and recorded the hit song, “Forget Me Nots,” which has been frequently covered by other artists, among them actor Will Smith for the title song of the film, Men in Black.

Rushen is a four-time Grammy nominee who has composed scores for movies and television. She was the first female musical director for many of the entertainment industry’s top award shows: the Grammy Awards, the Emmy Awards, the People’s Choice Awards, the NAACP Image Awards and HBO’s Comic Relief V.

Considered one of the world’s top jazz pianists, she has performed with Stevie Wonder, Herbie Hancock, Prince, Nancy Wilson, Ndugu Chancler, Carlos Santana, Freddie Hubbard and Lee Ritenour and George Duke. She is a record producer and an award-winning composer of symphonic music, some of which was commissioned by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Rushen is the Ambassador For Artistry In Education at Boston’s Berklee College of Music and is the chair of the popular music program at USC’s Thornton School of Music in Los Angeles.

Rushen works with the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department and the National Recording Arts and Sciences Grammy In The Schools program. She has worked with the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, the Young Musicians Choral Orchestra and other organizations dedicated to establishing music education and mentorship programs for underprivileged youth.