Receiving a grant from Joe Bonamassa’s Keepin’ the Blues Alive Foundation for the school.

The grant allowed the purchase of 36 acoustic guitars, 3 electric guitars, 3 electric basses, 6 61 key MIDI keyboards, a drum set, and a fender passport for the classroom.
One year later, journalist Dan Gross did follow up to the story. The clip includes an interview with two of my amazing students and some short thoughts from me.

I invited the guitarist from Hamilton: An American Musical to speak with my guitar classes after seeing opening night performance in Rochester. He generously accepted and extended the invitation to two other musicians in the pit. I opened the conversation to any student who I thought would be interested in hearing what they had to share about being professional musicians. A big thank you to Adam Kornreich (guitar), Anna Luce (violin), and Sam Bagala (keyboards) for speaking with the students.

Creating a Live Music & Sound Production Intensive (a three day intensive study of a student-selected subject). In our intensive, we:

Visited Green Room Recording Studio with Mr. Matt Rammerman (owner), recording demonstration and music industry discussion.
Toured Anthology (a 1000 cap. venue) with owner Mr. Phil Fitzsimmons, followed by a Q&A with Mr. Anthony Washington, a DJ at WDKX 103.9 Radio Station.
Toured Flour City Station (a 250 cap. venue) with general manager Mr. Matt Green, followed by discussion about marketing
Toured Finger Lakes Community College (FLCC), students explored degree options related to music recording and production, Q&A on college student life and scholarship options.
Toured the House of Guitars with Mr. Mike Follett, toured recording studio, discussion live sound production and commercial products available.
Visited Guitar Center with a brief tour and presentation on the hardware and software available for those interested in home audio production.

Whenever I see my students post a video to YouTube or hear they’ll playing at a local open mic in Rochester. Arabella has been a student of mine through her time as a high school student. Here’s a link to her YouTube channel.

Designing a podcasting project using only a chrome book

Researching a topic and recording a podcast from start to finish using only a Google Chromebook can seem impossible. I created this project when I was pushing into classrooms daily (an English, Science, or Art classroom). Here’s a .pdf of the project overview with embedded links to all the resources we use throughout the project.