Jazz and Rock
Paul Ahlstrand
Private Lessons Instructor, Jazz Saxophone
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Jerry Bussiere
Private Lessons Instructor, Jazz and Rock Guitar, and Ukulele
Jerry Bussiere has studied jazz guitar, composition, and improvisation privately with Ross Adams, John Scofield, Jerry Bergonzi and Charlie Banacos. In addition to extensive performing in many styles of western popular music as an acoustic and electric guitarist and vocalist, he has been a mainstay in the greater Boston Modern Dance Community as an accompanist, composer and soundtrack producer. Jerry brings the practical skills he has earned from more than forty years of working as a band leader and freelance guitarist to the teaching studio. He continues to expand his working knowledge of the guitar and its application in all forms of popular music, including Jazz, Rock, Blues, Country, Folk, Funk/R&B and African and Latin American. Jerry is particularly fascinated with the guitar as a unique and sophisticated harmonic template and its potential to be on par with the piano as a composer's tool. Jerry also plays bass guitar, ukulele, and a variety of hand drums and percussion instruments. He will work with students who are on a professional track as well as those who wish to play recreationally. All aspects of music may be taken into consideration, including Jazz and Popular music theory, sight reading standard notation and chord charts, and all aspects of fretboard knowledge and technique. Music is selected based on the student's interests and goals.
Jerry's personal musical influences are many and varied and a brief list would include the following: The Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Meters, Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Herbie Hancock, Ravi Shankar, Motown, Stax/Volt and Muscle Shoals style Southern Soul Music, Sly Stone, James Brown, P-Funk, Jimi Hendrix, T-Bone Walker, Muddy Waters, BB King, Charlie Christian, Wes Montgomery, Pat Martino, Jim Hall, Joe Pass, John McLaughlin, Django Reinhardt, Paco DeLucia, Pierre Bensusan, Egberto Gismonti, Tony Rice, Ali Farka Toure and many more.
Phillip Grannan
Private Lessons Instructor, Guitar and Jazz
Phillip Grannan is a guitarist, composer, and educator based in the Boston area. Originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, he graduated from Tufts University in 2012 before earning two master’s degrees from the Longy School of Music of Bard College in 2015, focusing on Composition and Modern American Music.
Since 2019, Phillip has taught guitar and jazz band at Somerville High School, where he also leads an afterschool Jazz Club and Ukulele Club. He offers community music classes at Tufts and private lessons to undergraduates. He has been actively teaching tufts community music classes and summer music program since 2012. Currently, Phillip performs with Gateway Jaz, contributing to Boston's vibrant music scene.
Fernando Huergo
Private Lessons Instructor, Jazz and Rock Electric Bass
Fernando Huergo is a bassist, composer, and educator, originally from Córdoba, Argentina, now based in Boston. He has recorded over 160 albums, including 11 as a leader and co-leader.
Fernando has toured and given clinics throughout North, Central and South America, Europe, Africa and Asia.
An active performer on the jazz scene, he currently plays with Guillermo Klein y Los Guachos, Mehmet Sanlikol Big Band, Jim Kelly, Jason Yeager, Yulia Musayelyan, New World Jazz Composers Octet, Pablo Ablanedo Octet, Macuco Quintet, Jared Sims, Nick Grondin, Allan Chase, Leo Blanco and Dario Acosta Teich, among many others. He has performed in groups led by Luciana Souza, Cesar Camargo Mariano Trio, Danilo Perez, Marta Gómez, Dave Valentín, Hendrick Meurkens, Dave Liebman, Dave Samuels, Joe Beck, and many others.
Fernando Huergo has performed with his quintet at the Buenos Aires Jazz Festival, and Cordoba International Jazz Festival in Argentina, as well as at Alexanderplatz Jazz Club in Rome, Italy, and Sunside Jazz in Paris, France, The Regattabar in Cambridge and in Marblehead, Northborough, Arlington, Lawrence, Medford and Groton Jazz Festivals in Massachusetts, and at Cornelia Street Café, El Taller Latino, Cachaça, Tutuma, Bonafide and Satalla in NYC, among others. His latest album, Relentless, (Whaling City Sound, 2024) stayed in the top 50 of the Billboard Jazz Radio for 23 weeks.
In 2010, he received a grant from Chamber Music of America and the French American Cultural Exchange, which resulted in the recording of the album Suite in Blue and White (Wherego Music, 2010) in Paris, France.
Fernando is a professor in the Bass Department at Berklee College of Music, where he has taught since 1996, and an adjunct faculty at Tufts University since 2001; at Northeastern University and in New England Conservatory Preparatory Division since 2017.
He graduated from Berklee College of Music in 1992, and also studied at New England Conservatory. His principal teachers included Charlie Banacos, Jerry Bergonzi, George Garzone, Cecil McBee, George Russell, Whit Browne, Oscar Stagnaro, and Bruce Gertz, among others.
His latest album "Relentless" was called album of the year in 2024 by many publications, radio stations, and jazz critics.
Fernando Michelin
Private Lessons Instructor, Jazz Piano
Information forthcoming.
Adrian Sicam
Private Lessons Instructor; Voice, Piano
Adrian Sicam is a professional singer, songwriter, and professor of voice at Berklee College Of Music & Tufts University. He was raised in Syracuse NY where his father was a member of the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra (SSO). Adrian began performing at age eleven when he was given the opportunity to tour upstate New York with the SSO and featured performer Bob McGrath of Sesame Street fame.
After a year-long stint working as an actor and music director with the Merry-Go-Round Playhouse in Auburn NY, Adrian moved to Union Square in Somerville MA. From 1996 to 2000, he served as vocalist and keyboardist for the hip spoken word & funk rock ensemble Neon Grandma. His song Funky Lover, featured on Neon Grandma's CD The Urban Goddess, was popular with club-goers. In addition, Adrian began working the private party circuit of New England, singing at dozens of corporate functions and weddings. It was during this period that Adrian became adept at performing in a variety of musical genres. After releasing his second solo CD Hey, Stranger in 2001, Adrian moved to New York City where he taught private voice and piano, and was active as a songwriter and vocalist on several recording sessions.
In 2013, he joined the voice faculty at Berklee College of Music. In 2016, he joined the adjunct faculty at Tufts University. In addition to teaching at Berklee and Tufts, Adrian is a lead vocalist for the Boston-based Silver Arrow Band. In June of 2023, Adrian participated in a musical tribute to Burt Bacharach organized by SRP Records producer Carl Sturken which resulted in several professional video recordings that can be found on YouTube. Adrian is currently preparing to release a double live album recorded at Distler Performance Hall, Tufts University in 2004. He resides in Greenfield MA with his wife and two children.
Celia Slattery
Jazz, Rock, Pop Voice
With a “storied career of mixing music and monologue into exuberantly theatrical form” (Metronome Magazine), Celia Slattery has entertained audiences from Boston to Bangkok with her original songs, one-woman shows, and interpretations of jazz and pop standards.
Highlights from Celia’s career include a six-month stint singing nightly at the Oriental Hotel, Bangkok, Thailand (often named world’s #1 hotel). She has toured her original one-woman shows at theaters, art centers, and festivals including the Montreal Fringe Festival, the Center for the Arts at Natick and Jimmy Tingle’s Off Broadway, and has made numerous club appearances throughout the Northeast, including a regular gig at the legendary Ryles Jazz Club in Cambridge.
Celia has released three CDs: Movin’ On (2001), Cast of Characters (2008), and Our Life Together (2014).
A passionate music educator, Celia is an Associate Professor of Voice at Berklee College of Music, Private Lesson Instructor at Tufts University, and founder of Celia Slattery Voice Studio in Somerville, MA. Originally trained in theater, she later pursued Voice and Jazz studies at New England Conservatory, and earned a Level III certificate in Somatic Voicework™ (the LoVetri Method)—a state-of-the-art vocal technique especially geared for contemporary styles. Celia has presented workshops and masterclasses at many schools and conferences including Passim School of Music, the Northeast Regional Folk Alliance, the New England Theater Conference, and the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival.