Other Faculty
(Composition, Arranging, Alexander Technique)
Javier Arau | Darcy Argue | Jeff Fairbanks | Mark Josefsberg | Mat Maneri Miles Okazaki | Russ Spiegel |
Javier Arau - Theory/Composition/Arranging
Listen to Javier: "Gypsy Children"
Neighborhood: Jackson Heights, Queens (will travel)
View interactive map.
Ages taught: age 8-adult
Levels taught: beg-adv
Secondary instruments taught: piano (from age 4), flute, clarinet, saxophone
Send us an email letting us know that you want to study with Javier.
Javier Arau is an internationally acclaimed saxophonist, composer, and educator. The front cover artist on the July 2009 issue Saxophone Journal, he has received four Down Beat Magazine Awards for performance, composition, and arranging, and has received national awards and recognition from ASCAP, BMI, and MENC, among others. An active composer in New York City, his compositions have been played by Benny Golson, David Garibaldi, the Berkeley Symphony (Kent Nagano, dir.), and many more. Was a finalist for the BMI Charlie Parker Composition Prize and the IAJE/ASCAP Gil Evans Fellowship. Javier studied composition with Bob Brookmeyer and theory with George Russell. An innovator in the field of jazz education, Javier's research and development has been recognized by leading music institutions worldwide. He has taught at New England Conservatory of Music and Lawrence University and teaches private lessons to musicians of all ages in New York City. Javier is the author of several influential music texts and articles, and he has been published by Jazz Educators Journal, UNC Jazz Press, and Dorn Publications. He has taught jazz for over 17 years. For more about Javier, visit www.JavierArau.com.
Darcy James Argue - Composition/Arranging
Listen to Darcy: "Transit"
Neighborhood: Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn (will travel)
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Ages taught: ages 10-adult
Levels taught: beg-adv
Send us an email letting us know that you want to study with Darcy.
Vancouver-born, Brooklyn-based composer Darcy James Argue leads Secret Society, a "powerful and well-stocked ensemble" (New York Times) featuring his "ambitious, sprawling, mesmerizing" music (Montreal Gazette). Secret Society is an 18-piece steampunk bigband that evokes an alternate musical history, one in which the dance orchestras that ruled the Swing Era never went extinct, but continued to evolve with the times, remaining a vital part of the musical landscape straight through the present day. Argue's compositions bring together "a big, broad musical vocabulary" (New York Times), one which invokes "Duke Ellington and minimalism and Tortoise and Funkadelic and Elliott Carter and much else besides melding into one floating, shifting, dodging music" (Carl Wilson, zoilus.com). Secret Society's debut recording, Infernal Machines (New Amsterdam Records), was released in May 2009 to near-universal acclaim. Newsweek praised it as "a wholly original take on big band's past, present and future," Time Out New York awarded it five stars and proclaimed it "a seven-track marvel of imagination," and the BBC called it "[a] nearly perfect creative synthesis between tradition and innovation." For more about Darcy, visit www.SecretSociety.typepad.com.
Mat Maneri - Violin/Strings
Neighborhood: Park Slope, Brooklyn (will travel)
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Ages taught: ages 5-adult
Levels taught: beg-adv
Send us an email letting us know that you want to study with Mat.
Violinist, composer, and improviser Mat Maneri is recognized world-wide as a leading figure in improvised music. For more about Mat, visit www.myspace.com/matmaneri.
Miles Okazaki - Improv/Theory-Composition
Listen to Miles: "Momentum"
Neighborhood: Prospect Park, Brooklyn (will travel)
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Ages taught: ages 12-adult
Levels taught: beg-adv
Send us an email letting us know that you want to study with Miles.
Guitarist, theorist, and composer Miles Okazaki grew up in the Pacific Northwest, in the small waterfront town of Port Townsend, Washington. The son of a painter and photographer, he began his studies of the visual arts at a young age. He began to teach himself guitar at age 6, and by the time he was a teenager, he had already won many awards and notoriety as a local jazz guitarist in the Northwest. After graduating from Harvard University, Okazaki moved to New York to attend Manhattan School of Music, where he met his first teacher, Rodney Jones. He began to gain local attention, playing in New York and taking first place at the Fish-Middleton Jazz Competition in Washington, D.C. Working with Jones after graduation, he learned how to arrange and prepare recording sessions, and fundamentals of the music business, working with artists such as Donald Harrison, Ernestine Anderson, Ruth Brown, Jimmy McGriff, and Lena Horne. He also began to pick up sideman work, with Regina Carter, Stanley Turrentine, Lenny Pickett, Allan Harris, and vocalist Jane Monheit, who he toured the world with for four years. During this time, he undertook intensive studies of Brazilian and South Indian musical traditions. In 2005 he entered the Thelonious Monk Guitar Competition, and with the prize money from his finish as a finalist, he recorded his debut album, Mirror, which had taken five years to compose. It was released in 2007 to great critical acclaim, called "a work of sustained collectivity as well as deep intricacy" in a New York Times "Critics Pick." The writing on this record won Okazaki a prestigious "New Works" grant from Chamber Music America, which funded his second extended work as a leader, Generations, released by Sunnyside records in the Spring of 2009. This album is received similar praise; Downbeat Magazine wrote: "Rarely does even a minute elapse on Generations where the emphatic first impression that the composer has a rare acuity for form, rhythm and harmonic movement is not reinforced. Ditto that for Okazaki's skills as a guitarist." Currently Okazaki is working on several grants and commissions, and performs with his own ensembles, Steve Coleman and Five Elements, Dan Weiss, Jen Shyu, and a variety of projects. For more about Miles, visit www.MilesOkazaki.com.
Mark Josefsberg - Alexander Technique
Watch a video on the Alexander Technique here.
Neighborhood: Midtown, Manhattan and Elmhurst, Queens
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Ages taught: ages 10-adult
Levels taught: beg-adv
Secondary instruments taught: vibraphone
Send us an email letting us know that you want to study with Mark.
After studying Alexander Technique privately for some years, virtuoso jazz vibraphonist Mark Josefsberg decided to take the 1600 hour, 3 year training course to become a full time Nationally Certified Alexander Technique teacher. Mark has studied with some of the most experienced Alexander teachers from the United States, Israel and England, and he is ACAT and AmSAT Certified. In addition to his private teaching practice, with students from all walks of life, Mark has been on faculty at ACAT, training future Alexander Teachers. Some of Mark's private students have gone on to become certified teachers of the Technique. Mark has taught the Technique at Barnard/Columbia University's Physical Education department, and he is the AT teacher on staff at A.R.E. Holistic Health and Wellness Center in New York City. Mark also teaches the AT at the New York Spine Institute in Garden City, and at Step Into Stride Physical Therapy in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Mark is recommended by Beth Israel Hospital's Continuum for Health and Healing. Mark has written several articles regarding the Alexander Technique for Altmd.com, Wellsphere.com and alexandertechnique.com. For more about Mark, visit www.MarkJosefsberg.com.
