Last weekend I went to NYC to attend the 2010 Surdna Arts Teacher Fellowship convening and spent 2 1/2 days with fellow teaching artists and administrators. It was an incredible experience – one that I will share in more detail at another time.   We spent quite a bit of time talking about what it [...]

I have a lot of people ask me about my summer… and I find myself at a complete loss for words. It seems like the typical words that should be used in this sort of instance – awesome, incredible, very interesting, I learned a lot – fall short of expressing even a small portion of [...]

I got these links from the Arizona Commission on the Arts – Arts Learning Newsletter. You can find more out about it here: www.azarts.gov Grant Funding: MAP Fund LETTER OF INQUIRY DEADLINE: October 15, 2009 The MAP Fund provides project-specific funding to playwrights, choreographers, directors, composers and performers experimenting in any performance tradition or discipline. [...]

One of the most amazing parts of attending the Aebersold Summer Jazz Workshop was getting to meet so many fantastic players and educators. I’ll be posting more about my experiences, but I felt like it was best to start with these 6 incredible people – the ones who started it all. One of the most [...]

Today was the first day of the Aebersold Summer Jazz Camp in Louisville, KY. Technically, it’s day 2 of my grant journey, and although day 1 was interesting and exciting, I’ll save it for another night. (The 3 hour time different from Phoenix has really messed with my schedule.) Right now, I’ll talk about the [...]

“That’s great, because he does what you want to do”, said one of my closest friends when I told him about taking a lesson with Chris Vadala as a part of my grant project. I didn’t think much about it at the time, but as I got into my car afterward, the thought stuck me: [...]

Sometimes the hardest thing to do is, well, go. To get started. To move forward. This is true in so many different aspects of our lives – from trying to figure out what to clean first, to what to make for dinner. As a musician, the fear of what’s going to happen if you  __________ [...]

Recommended Jazz Stardards to Learn   One of my biggest weaknesses as a jazz player is knowing tunes. (“Knowing” in this case means that you have the melody and chord changes memorized and could play thru both without the use of a Real Book.) Over the years I have gathered many lists and I never [...]

SURDNA Press Release

I had always heard that money was out there… and I have a few friends who have done some grant writing, but I had never gone through the experience myself until this year. About a month ago I applied for a professional growth grant from Surdna. It was one of those things where the arts [...]