2024 Guest Clinicians
Some of our favorite moments of the week happen when world-renowned guests provide unique lectures and masterclasses!
Past In-Person Guest Clinicians Include:
Queen Esther
Will Friedwald
Vince Giordano
Wycliffe Gordon
Russell Hall
Seton Hawkins
Sherrie Maricle
Michela Marino Lerman
Ken Peplowski
Ricky Riccardi
Catherine Russell
Cynthia Sayer
Loren Schoenberg
Patrick Soluri
Spike Wilner
Past Virtual Clinicians Include:
Emily Asher
Gordon Au
Mike Davis
Jared Engel
Queen Esther
Jim Fryer
Wycliffe Gordon
Dan Levinson
Nicki Parrott
Ken Peplowski
Mathis Picard
Cat Russell
Cynthia Sayer
Andy Schumm is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, and arranger originally from Wisconsin. In the Cellar Boys, you can hear him play cornet, clarinet, and saxophone. Now based in Chicago for more than ten years, Andy has appeared all over the traditional jazz world, both domestically and internationally. He is also an avid student of the history of jazz.
FRIDAY, APRIL 26
ANDY SCHUMM
THURSDAY, APRIL 25
QUEEN ESTHER
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24
WILL FRIEDWALD
2024 EXTRAS
SATURDAY, APRIL 27
Meet Brooklyn-born Greek Goddess of dance, Pandora Burlesk. A native of the New York swing dance scene, actress & burlesque dancer, Pandora also specializes in walking tours. Campers will be led through a historical tour about NY jazz composers, NYC nightlife in the 20s, and the birthplace of many jazz age hit songs.... Tin Pan Alley.
(spouses welcome)
Will Friedwald writes about music and popular culture for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Sun, The New York Stage Review, Vanity Fair, Playboymagazine and other publications. He is also the host of the radio show Sing! Sing! Sing! on San Diego KSDS on Saturday mornings. He also is the author of ten books including the award-winning A Biographical Guide To The Great Jazz And Pop Singers, Sinatra: The Song Is You, Stardust Melodies, Tony Bennett: The Good Life, Looney Tunes & Merrie Melodies, and Jazz Singing. He has written over 600 liner notes for compact discs, received eleven Grammy nominations, and appears frequently on television and other documentaries. He is also a consultant and curator for Apple Music. Current books : The Great Jazz And Pop Vocal Albums (Pantheon Books / Random House, November 2017), Sinatra: The Song Is You! - New Revised Edition (Chicago Review Press, May 2018) and Straighten Up and Fly Right: The Life and Music of Nat King Cole (Oxford University Press, July 2020).
Described as “...the unknown queen of Americana…”, Queen Esther’s creative output musically is the culmination of several critical Southern elements, not the least of which are years of recording and touring internationally as frontwoman for several projects with her mentor, harmolodic guitar icon James “Blood” Ulmer. Raised in Atlanta, GA and embedded in Charleston, SC’s Lowcountry – a region with African traditions and Black folkways that span centuries and constantly inform her work – Queen Esther uses her Southern roots as a touchstone to explore cultural mores in America, deconstructing well-worn historical narratives while creating a reclamation-driven soundscape.
Currently, Queen Esther is a playwright-in-residence in the 2022 - 2024 WP Theater Pipeline PlayLAB, with a full length play scheduled for an Off Broadway staged reading in April 2024. She is a member of Joe's Pub Working Group, Western Arts Allilance's Performing Artist Discovery program and Keychange US Talent Development Program. Queen Esther's pandemic album Rona (released June 2, 2023) is climbing the folk charts while garnering airplay and reviews worldwide as her 2018 TED Talk about the true origins of country and bluegrass steadily reverberates throughout the Americana community