Commercial and jazz guitarist Derick Cordoba has toured over 20 countries and has performed on over 20 recordings. His recordings have sold over 150,000 copies. He is currently the Director of the Johnny Mann Center for Commercial Music and Assistant Professor of Music at Anderson University. He was formerly the Unit One Music Coordinator at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Derick completed his doctorate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2017 where he studied with Larry Gray and Gabriel Solis. His Dissertation: Liturgical Jazz: The Lineage of the subgenre in the Music of Edgar E. Summerlin was deposited in 2017. He holds degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (DMA), Florida International University (MM), and University of North Florida (BM).