Jazz and Rock

Paul Ahlstrand

Private Lessons Instructor, Jazz Saxophone

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.

Fernando Huergo

Private Lessons Instructor, Jazz and Rock Electric Bass

Fernando Huergo was born in Cordoba, Argentina in 1968. He has recording over 60 albums, including three as leader and four as co-leader. Fernando has toured in North, Central and South America, Europe and Asia. He has given clinics in Argentina, Costa Rica, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Panama, Puerto Rico, Portugal, England, France, Germany, Sweden, Finland, Turkey, Japan and many American cities. Fernando graduated from Berklee Collge of Music in 1992, where he has been Assistant Professor in the Bass Department since 1996.

Fernando Michelin

Private Lessons Instructor, Jazz Piano

Information forthcoming.

Adrian Sicam

Private Lessons Instructor, Classical Voice

Adrian Sicam is a Tufts University voice instructor. He was raised in Syracuse, NY where his father was a member of the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra. While attending Syracuse University (SU), Adrian performed in a variety of theatrical productions. He was also a member of Windjammer, the university's vocal jazz ensemble. After earning his B.F.A. from SU, Adrian recorded and released his first CD of original songs and arrangements entitled "Inspired". The Syracuse New Times called the disc "an impressive debut from this multi-talented singer-songwriter."

After a successful year-long stint working as an actor and music director with the Merry-Go-Round Playhouse in Auburn, NY, Adrian moved to Somerville, MA. There, he served as vocalist and keyboardist for the hip spoken word & funk rock ensemble Neon Grandma for five years. 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 hundreds 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 as Assistant Professor. In addition to teaching at Tufts and Berklee, Adrian is one of the featured vocalists for the Boston-based big band Hip Pocket Orchestra. A devoted husband and father of three children, Adrian currently resides in Beverly, MA

Celia Slattery

Jazz, Rock, Pop Voice

Celia Slattery has entertained audiences from Boston to Bangkok with her original music and interpretations of jazz and pop standards. In her early career, inspired by the folk tradition and singer-songwriters like Joni Mitchell and Carole King, she toured as a solo acoustic act at coffeehouses and clubs. Later, jazz studies at New England Conservatory with Dominique Eade and Ran Blake introduced her to the Great American Songbook and vocalists like Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday. She began to collaborate with some of the finest Boston area musicians with performances at clubs, arts centers and special events, including a regular series at the legendary Ryles Jazz Club in Cambridge. She also had a six-month gig singing nightly at the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok, often named world’s number one hotel. Celia has released three CDs; Metronome Magazine called her 2014 release, Our Life Together, “a wonderfully crafted album full of soul-stirring performances both musically and vocally.” Celia is an Associate Professor in the Voice Department at Berklee College of Music and has a thriving private studio in Davis Square, Somerville. She has a Level III certificate in Somatic Voicework™ (the LoVetri Method), a state-of-the-art vocal technique for contemporary music. In addition she has taught performing arts classes at Lesley and Salem State Universities, and has given master classes in voice technique, vocal health, performance skills, and audition technique at schools and conferences such as New England Conservatory Summer School and the Kennedy School American College Theater Festival.