Improve your abilities to compose Music and Songs with an Award-winning Composer

Jeffrey's resume

PROFILE
Jeffrey is a highly skilled and experienced music educator, composer and performer. He has recently arrived in New York City after living in Pretoria, South Africa where he has lectured in jazz studies at Tshwane University of Technology, performed classical music with the Gauteng Philharmonic Orchestra and freelances as a jazz instrumentalist, composer, and arranger. His major instrument is the French Horn.

VALUES
-Teaching and educating today’s students with passion, respect, and integrity.
-Mentoring students with values that reach beyond the classroom.
-Inspiring student’s to become lifelong learners.
-Building a community within the classroom and school that inspires and promotes a compassionate outlook on life and respect for humanity and the environment.
-Working closely with teachers and principals to create and maintain a vibrant, rigorous, course curriculum.
-Creating exquisite and inspiring works of art through collaboration and teamwork.
-Creating music with sincerity, significance & meaning. Improving my teaching abilities through continuous study of teaching methodologies and innovations in the field of education.
Integrating technology into the classroom that improves and facilitates learning.
-Being a lifelong learner and teacher.

HIGHLY SKILLED IN
-Ability to construct curriculums that are effective in teaching music lessons through various methods and differentiation.
-Ability to lead productions and projects to successful completion.
-Excellent written and verbal communication skills. Creative and organized in planning and developing ideas as well as integrated, realistic approaches to problems and issues.
-Ability to finish projects in a timely and efficient manner. Highly skilled with software programs Cubase 8 (Music Production), Sibelius 6 (Music Notation), and Microsoft Word.
-Ability to advise on website design, new approaches to the music business, marketing and advertising, social media integration, resume/CV design with Canva, and career development and diversification.

DISTINGUISHING QUALITIES
• Cheerful, congenial, polite, and magnanimous attitude towards clients, coworkers, and students.
• An optimistic attitude in facing challenges and bringing practicality, versatility, and flexibility to problem-solving.
• Ability to work with and communicate with people of all age groups and cultural backgrounds.
• Punctuality and dependability.
• Lifelong Learner.

TEACHING PHILOSOPHY
As an educator, I am dedicated to enhancing and improving the lives of my students through music, song, and dance. By nature, young people are inquisitive about the world in which they live. They wish to engage and collaborate with people in finding solutions to today’s challenges. In addition to these art forms as a means for expression, they offer opportunities for students to study the history and social contexts through which the art forms evolve.

My primary objectives are to teach sound fundamentals in an inspiring, cheerful and safe atmosphere and to use music education as an opportunity to focus student’s attention on the world outside the classroom and to demonstrate how music performance, history, and style is woven into the fabric of everyday life.

Furthermore, I believe that when a person studies music they not only complete a well-rounded education but they foster within themselves a peaceful outlook toward their world community. Inspiring, beautiful music is created through, dedication, discipline, and teamwork along with ones’ willingness to sacrifice personal goals for team goals. Music creation should be a reflection of democratic ethos…people working together to overcome common obstacles, and viewing challenges not as barriers but as opportunities to improve life for everyone.

As a music educator, it is my responsibility to encourage and inspire my students to become better musicians and to prepare them to be successful members of the world community. As their teacher I see them becoming capable of applying the knowledge they have amassed while at university and contributing their hard-earned efforts to a future that has hope and promise. As their mentor, I will help them to observe the world through music. I will encourage their awareness of the social, historical, political, and aesthetic qualities of music and its impact on the greater world community.

Concerning my professional development, I am ever conscious of learning how to be a more effective teacher. The need to develop as a teacher keeps me actively exploring new pathways to knowledge through the vast online educational resources to reading books by academic scholars to attending teacher-training conferences. I am interested in and receptive to learning from students, parents, peers, and administrators about successful/alternative teaching methods and ways that I can improve my overall performance as a teacher.

Perhaps the overall highlight of my teaching experience is witnessing how diverse cultures and peoples can, and do work together peacefully every day creating works of musical art and while doing so, instill within themselves greater respect for humanity and diversity.

Music allows me the opportunity as an educator to make a positive impact on the lives of my students. All of us have been students, and we recall a teacher or two that made a lasting, positive impact on our lives. Through music education, I hope to inspire students to be better musicians and well-rounded, educated human beings capable of living and engaging in their world community with purpose and positive impact.

Musical Skills and Abilities
-French Horn/brass methods from the beginning level through advanced.
-Music theory, classical and jazz Music performance, classical and jazz Music Composition and songwriting
-Music Technology and Synthesis Sibelius Music Notation
-Music Production
-Vocal performance techniques and approaches to improving performances.

Music Education and Training

-The Juilliard School, NY, Masters of Music Cleveland Institute of Music, Bachelor of Music Lehman College, NY, Master of Arts in Teaching
-Canadian Screen Training Centre, Canada- Intensive film score composition, Tim McCauley, Instructor
-Digital Audio Production /Midi Recording Level 2 Algonquin College, Canada
-Banff Center for the Arts, Jazz Instrumental Workshop, Canada
-New York Jazz Workshop-Current 2018

Professional Employment & Experience
-Gauteng Philharmonic Orchestra, performer on 2nd Horn- 2013-2017 JazzItUp: Jazz Trio performing live in Pretoria, South Africa- 2013-2017
-The Tshwane University of Technology, Director of Jazz Ensemble, Jazz Workshop, Lecturer in Songwriting and Brass Pedagogy-2013-15
-Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra (substitute Horn)-2013

-Musical Director, Composer/Arranger- “Why The Birds Sing To Me”-a musical drama Performed in Nairobi, Kenya - May 2013

-Music Teacher Grades 7-11, Aga Khan Academy, Nairobi Kenya- 2012-13, The
International Baccalaureate (IB) Middle Years Programme (MYP) is for students aged 11-16. Member of the

-Jacob Asiyo Jazz Quartet, Nairobi, Kenya-2011-2013

-Project Coordinator for the Community Musical Theater Project for N. Uganda, Music Director, Composer/Lyricist, Co-Producer/Writer of “Why The Bird Sings To Me”, a musical theater drama about the twenty-year civil war in Uganda-December 2007-8

-Musical Director and Composer/Arranger for Kampala Amateur Dramatist's Society for the productions of Robin Hood of Mabira Forest-2008 and The Emperor’s New Clothes-2007


Compositions for films and animation


Marvin Hamlisch Film Composition Contest- 2016-2018----------
Getting Out- Produced by the Refugee Law Project Uganda. 2010----------------------------
Gender Against Men- Produced by the Refugee Law Project Uganda. 2009----------------
The Dreams of Elibidi-Directed by Kamau Wa Ndung’u and Nick Reding. 2010------------
Handling the A.M., a film by Josiah D. Lee. 2006---------------------------------------------------
Heaven Earth Truth Justice- Feature documentary film by Katherine Liao-------------------
The Measure of a Man- a film by David Stambrook. 2004

Demo Trailer Trailer
IMDB Credit IMDB Credit Trailer



Compositions performed live

-“Jazz Moodswing Concert”. Original Music and Arrangements for Jazz Quartet-Pretoria, South Africa September 2017
-Jazz Concert-Original Jazz compositions performed at the University of South Africa-Pretoria. May 2014. I participated as composer and performer.
-“Why The Birds Sing To Me”. Original Musical Theater work. Performed at the Oshwal Center by Aga Khan Academy students in May 2013-Nairobi, Kenya. This was the second production of this work. I participated as composer, lyricist, arranger and musical director.
-“A Midsummer Nights Dream” by William Shakespeare. Original music composed for Rosslyn Academy’s stage play. Nairobi, Kenya-March 2011
-“A Cry for Women’s Dignity”. Original Music for Modern Dance. Performed by Valerie Miquel, artistic director of the Uganda National Contemporary Ballet Company, at The National Theater in Kampala, Uganda-November 2011. Most recent performances in September 2015.
-“The Middle Way- A fusion of Kung Fu and Contemporary Dance”. Original Music for Modern Dance- Performed by the Uganda National Contemporary Ballet Company, and Kung Fu master Dominique Saatenang Uganda- The National Theater in Kampala-June 2010.
-“Why The Birds Sing To Me”. Original Musical Theater-Performed by volunteer actors and singers at Gulu University and The National Theater in Kampala. These were the initial productions of the work. March 2009.
-“Robin Hood of Mabira Forest” - Original Musical Theater Comedy- Performed at The National Theater in Kampala-Uganda-December 2008.
-“The Emperor’s New Clothes” - Original Musical Theater Comedy- Performed at The National Theater in Kampala Uganda-December 2007



Current Activities-2018

• Oticons Faculty International Film Music Competition-Semi-Finalist 2017-18-19
• The Marvin Hamlisch Film Scoring Contest
• Hans Zimmer Master Class
• Dave Kusek’s New Artist Model
• Scholarly works in development: “From the Inside Out -The search for new motivic devices useful for music composition and improvisation; An exploration of chords, pentatonic scales and groups of notes from a tonal pivot point”. And “Small Steps: A Simplified Approach to Improvising on John Coltrane's Giant Steps”


Social Media

Linkedin-(concealed information) Facebook-(concealed information) Twitter-(concealed information)


Blog-My Story-My Life as a Music Entrepreneur
(concealed information)

Interests
-Improving my skills as an educator, musician, composer, and human being. Artistic projects that benefit humanity and make the world a better place.
-Music of the Masters, Classical and Jazz
-Great stories, films, songs, books, paintings, architecture
-Science, Astronomy, Space travel, History, dogs, cats, and Nature Marketing and Entrepreneurism