Roland Wiggins

Following his death on November 20, 2019, the Virginia state legislature introduced on March 2, 2020 House Joint Resolution 419 to recognize and celebrate Wiggins's achievements.

Wiggins moved to Massachusetts to be the director of the Center for the Study of Aesthetics in Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (1971 - 1973), and subsequently became an Associate Professor of Music at Hampshire College (1979 - 1986). In 1989, Hampshire College named a building after Wiggins, the Lebrón-Wiggins-Pran Cultural Center. In 1989, Wiggins moved to Charlottesville, Virginia where he was the director of the Luther P. Jackson Cultural Center at the University of Virginia.

In high school, Wiggins studied at the Philadelphia Conservatory of Music, including studying with Vincent Persichetti, a classical composer, author, and Juilliard School of Music faculty member. Wiggins went on to study at the Combs College of Music, where after about a week he was invited to be a member of the faculty, and where he earned his doctoral degree in music. He then moved to New York where he studied with American composer and theorist Henry Cowell and in 1961 became an authorized instructor of the Schillinger System of Musical Composition.

Yusef Lateef introduced Wiggins to John Coltrane in New York in the 1960s. After recording his album A Love Supreme, Coltrane called Wiggins to say that he was not too happy about some things he was doing which he thought were musical clichés. Wiggins replied saying, "John, they're yours". In other words, that by applying Coltrane's own musicality, his own syntax, semantics, and kinesthetics, to these things he thought were "clichés" they had instead become Coltrane's own. Wiggins also encouraged Coltrane to give himself credit for the mastery that he'd already developed and the contributions he'd already made to music. The theory discussion they had on that call influenced the direction of the later work of Coltrane, including his album Interstellar Space.

Roland Arlington Wiggins (April 15, 1932 – November 20, 2019) was an American music theorist and educator. His many students included John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Yusef Lateef, Sonny Fortune, Barry Harris, Archie Shepp, Buster Williams, Jimmy Owens, and Billy Taylor.

Wiggins was born in Ocean City, New Jersey, on April 15, 1932, where he began studying piano at 8 years old. In 1949, he moved to Philadelphia where he continued his music studies. In 1950, he joined the Air Force, serving and playing with trumpeter Donald Byrd. He married his wife Muriel Dockery Wiggins on November 3, 1956, with whom he had three daughters, Rosalyn Cowell in 1957, Suzan Elaine in 1959, and Carol Melissa in 1966.