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As a newly appointed CTF instructor in the Laurier Faculty of Music, I am excited to be teaching MU100 OC-1, "Music and its Contexts." In addition to teaching at Laurier, I have had several other music instructional portfolios around the GTA (Brock University and Humber College). Currently, I am one of the senior professors of music at Centennial College, and as well, the Coordinator and Curriculum Developer of a new joint program with the University of Toronto (Music Business and Technology). As an educator, I have taught courses in composition, theory, world music, piano performance, community music, and twentieth century music.
My formal education is comprised of a Master of Arts in Classical Composition, as well as a PhD in applied historical Musicology/ Ethnomusicology. To further enrich my passion for both traditional jazz and “Western Art Music,” I have studied for over 30 years with one of the “last” remaining true pedagogues of traditional jazz – Dr. Barry Harris (Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk, Sonny Stitt, etc.) and have cultivated a pedagogy for teaching “traditional jazz” by way of analyses and deconstruction from the Western Art canon.
- Harmonic analysis of Western Art musics, and how those musics are related to early jazz (Ragtime, Stride, Swing and Bebop).
- Classical improvisation – "Portamenti."
- Teaching Jazz history from the roots of the Slave Trade and "Great Migration."
- How artists such as Debussy, Ravel and Messiaen have influenced early jazz modernists (Ellington, Garner,Tatum, Monk, Powell and Shearning) in adopting new modalities to "modernism."
- Score reductions— Turning any harmonic progression into only 2 governing harmonic progressions— Tonic and Dominant (unless modal, post tonal, or serial).
- 2018 – KMB Scholarship award for best post-secondary music curricula from York University
- 2017 – Board Director for JPEC
- 2000 – Board Director for the Living Arts Centre
- 1998 – PC Magazine Award-Best CD Rom Soundtrack, “Virtual Metropolis”
- Student Anthony Carone is a part of the two-time Juno award winning band, the Arkells.
- Student Mathew Tavares is the Juno nominated keyboardist from the band BadBadNotGood, which has opened for Jay-Z and Beyonce, and has recorded with Snoop Dog and Ghost Face Killah.
Book Reviews
- “The Lived Experience of Improvisation: In Music Learning and Life” 2018
(Simon Rose) - “Improvisation and Music Education: Beyond the Classroom” (Editors: Ajay 2018
Heble and Mark Laver). https://www.criticalimprov.com/article/view/4086/4186
Articles
- “Erotic Cities: Examining the use of Instrumental anthropomorphism in Prince’s
Music” (Journal of African American Studies) de Lima, B.J. J Afr Am St (2017) 21: 385. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12111-017-9362-8
Selected Recordings
- 2006 – Dementia 5, “Inher Demons”
- 1998 – Humber Records, “The Elders are Listening” vol.1
- 1997 – Robert Ouellette, “Virtual Metropolis” soundtrack
Selected Performances
- 2005 – Opened for Oscar Peterson at Roy Thompson Hall
- 2003 – Opened for Oscar Peterson at the Living Arts Centre
- 1998 – Opened for Diana Krall at Musicfest Vancouver
I am quite impressed with how the Laurier Faculty of Music has offered students a robust choice of courses that are geared towards cultivating success in the "real world." Additionally, it feels comforting to know that my fellow colleagues are professionals of the highest caliber, that not only want to further their student’s knowledge of all things "music," but as well, seek to augment their own.