My teaching rests on three principles: rigor, clarity, and formation through practice. In recent years, my work has increasingly emphasized the role of the artist as citizen, and the responsibility of music education to engage ethical, cultural, and civic questions alongside craft.
I am a lifelong learner, and my philosophy of teaching has evolved over the years and will keep evolving. I have come to believe that teaching is more than the transfer of information from teacher to student. I want my students to leave with the habit of ongoing learning, because that habit is what carries them toward their full potential.
My teaching is based on authority, not authoritarianism. I take great pride in properly training the next generation in the specific skills of my craft. I treat my students as up-and-coming professionals: I make my expectations clear, and I hold them to high standards. I want them to understand the fundamental principles and concepts that guide their work, and I adjust my teaching strategies to meet each student’s needs. I ask students to set specific, manageable goals, then work out the incremental steps each goal requires.
Because I am an active, working musician, I can bring real-world scenarios into the classroom. For example, I:
- Have student ensembles sight-read and rehearse first drafts of my new compositions and arrangements before they go to professional ensembles.
- Bring renowned jazz artists to campus to rehearse their music and perform with my students, including Maria Schneider, Jim McNeely, Michael Abene, Erica von Kleist, Rufus Reid, and Ingrid Jensen.
- Assign arranging projects for the instrumentations of the professional ensembles I lead, with the understanding that work completed at a professional level will be performed by that ensemble.
- Organize an annual concert series featuring selected students alongside faculty, and support performances by student-led ensembles.
I collaborate across disciplines often, because I believe pooling creative and fiscal resources benefits everyone involved. Beyond my own work with colleagues in art, drama, dance, and music, I have started many projects that directly involve students. Jazz arranging students wrote the music for a children’s choir CD, ensembles prepared performance pieces with dance students, and orchestral string players joined the jazz ensemble to form a studio orchestra for which new music was commissioned.
More recently, I have extended this work beyond the arts. Songs for a Shifting World, a chamber song cycle that grew out of a UConn STEAM Innovation Grant, brought me together with poet V. Penelope Pelizzon, entomologist David Wagner, and environmental anthropologist Eleanor Shoreman-Ouimet. Their research on insect decline and climate displacement shaped the poems I set for bass-baritone Rod Nelman and the Black Square Ensemble.
That same sense of the artist as citizen shapes the work I ask of students. Through ArrangeHers, a partnership between UConn and the nonprofit JazzHers, my arranging students write for school band directors who are opening their jazz programs to instruments outside the standard big band: violin, horn, clarinet, bassoon, oboe. Those instruments are often how girls and non-binary students find their way into jazz, so a well-written part does more than fill out an ensemble. It widens who gets to play. Students write new parts for existing charts, adapt standards for small groups, and create graded solo sheets for beginners. In the process, they learn to write for real players with real limits, and to treat arranging as a service to a community.
My own ongoing development as a musician makes me a better teacher. Recently, I audited UConn’s introductory audio production course alongside undergraduates. Being a beginner again reminds me of the challenges and obstacles in learning, and makes me a more patient, insightful, and thoughtful teacher. It also strengthens my resolve to explain clearly what I do and how I do it.
I measure my teaching less by what happens in the classroom than by what happens after it. I find fulfillment in watching current students reach the goals they set for themselves, and real joy in seeing former students build careers in a wide range of musical roles.