About the Jazz Lab Summer Intensive for Adults
On your way home from work? Come jam! This invigorating summer session is open to string, woodwind, brass, piano and drum/percussion players – and vocalists – who are looking to expand their jazz knowledge and overall musical skills. Taught by Brooklyn-based jazz legends and multi-instrumental performing artists Peter Apfelbaum and Matt Pavolka, students will grow their understanding of jazz practice and performance in a warm, collaborative and non-competitive learning environment. The weeklong intensive culminates in a public performance at the BKCM Concert Hall.
The Summer Intensive is open by audition to students who have prior experience with the piano, bass, guitar, horns, strings or voice. Although no experience in Jazz is required, kindly note that this is an intensive program and we ask that students commit to attending all five evenings of the session!
Program Elements
Adult students who are completely new to jazz music and have little to no experience playing jazz in an ensemble setting are recommended for this intensive class.
Students will learn and engage with the following areas of focus during the week:
- Explore individual improvisation with just a few choice notes;
- Explore collective improvisation;
- Experience swing feel and explore swing phrasing;
- Gain an understanding of how each instrument functions in a jazz ensemble, through active listening and group play;
- Build knowledge of basic blues form.
Our faculty perform alongside the students in a mentorship model experience.
Adult students with experience on their instrument and performing jazz music in an ensemble setting are recommended for this intensive class.
Students will learn and engage with the following areas of focus during the week:
- Work with a broad range of challenging jazz repertoire and standards from the Great American Songbook;
- Gain deeper rhythmic and harmonic knowledge specific to various jazz styles;
- Explore various approaches to improvisation.
Our faculty perform alongside the students in a mentorship model experience.
How to Apply
Applications for Summer 2026 are now open. To apply, follow the steps below.
Step 1. Record your Audition Video using any smartphone device (Instrument-specific instructions are on the application form.)*
Step 2. Submit your video and application via the button below.
*Adult Jazz Ensembles students registered for the Fall ’25 and/or Spring ’26 program at BKCM are not required to submit a video. Instead, email summercamp@bkcm.org to register.
Jazz Lab Summer Intensive Faculty
Peter Apfelbaum, Adult Jazz Ensembles Leader, Multi-Instrumentalist and Composer
Berkeley, CA-born and based in New York City since 1998, saxophonist/pianist/drummer and composer Peter Apfelbaum is best known as leader of the genre-mashing big band, Hieroglyphics, which he formed while still in high school in 1977. The ensemble, which began to attract international attention in the 1980’s for its unique fusing of elements of world music with the aesthetics of the jazz avant-garde, received a Grammy nomination in 1991 for the album “Signs Of Life” (Antilles) and helped launch the careers of fellow Berkeleyans Joshua Redman, Benny Green, Craig Handy and Steven Bernstein, among others. The current version of the ensemble, now in its 43rd year and known as New York Hieroglyphics, released “It Is Written” in 2005 and toured an extended work, “Aural Histories” (commissioned by Chamber Music America), throughout the U.S. in 2008-2009.
An influential figure in new jazz for over three decades, Apfelbaum has worked with some of the leading figures in contemporary music, including the late Don Cherry (whose group, Multikulti, Apfelbaum was Musical Director of from 1989-1995), Cecil Taylor, Harry Belafonte, Omar Sosa, Bill Laswell and Phish. He has been commissioned by the Kronos Quartet and the National Swedish Radio Orchestra, among others. In 2013 he formed Sparkler, an electronica-based, vocal-driven sextet, which released its debut EP, “I Colored It In For You,” on Laswell’s MOD Technologies label in 2015 and premiered the commissioned work “The Ambidextrous Nature Of The Universe” at the Newport Jazz Festival in 2016.
He currently performs with Bernstein’s Millennial Territory Orchestra and Dafnis Prieto’s Sextet. In 2017, Apfelbaum was named an Artistic Director of Creative Music Foundation, an organization dedicated to offering workshops by improvising musicians from diverse backgrounds. CMJ New Music Report has called Apfelbaum “A visionary, galvanic composer like few others of his time.”
Matt Pavolka, Bass & Adult Jazz Ensembles
For twenty years, bassist/composer Matt Pavolka has been a vital force in the New York Jazz and Creative Music scenes. A partial list of musicians and bands that he has performed with includes Lee Konitz, Paul Motian, Guillermo Klein, Chris Cheek, Kevin Hayes, Ben Monder, House of Illusion, Josh Roseman’s Extended Constellations, Dave Binney, The Ryan Scott Orchestra, Magalie Souriou, Elysian Fields, Joe Beck, J. Geils, Tony Malaby, Bill McHenry, Matt Renzi and Ohad Talmor’s Newsreel. He has toured extensively in the United States, Europe and Japan and can be heard on many recordings, including releases from Magalie Souriou, Guillermo Klein, Marlon Browdon, Andre Fernandes, Nate Radley, Noah Preminger and House of Illusion. He has released two albums as a leader, “Something People Can Use,” on Tone Of A Pitch Records and “The Horns Band” on the Fresh Sounds, New Talent label.
Pavolka grew up in Bloomington, Indiana. He began playing the trombone at an early age and studied with David Baker before heading to Boston to attend the Berklee College of Music on a full scholarship as a trombonist at age 18. He switched his major to bass in his first year there and was awarded an outstanding performance award on that instrument as well as the Charles Mingus Award for his work as a composer. He moved to New York in 1994. In addition to his work as a performing musician, composer and bandleader, he is active as a music educator. He is also the musical director for the Redeye Grill in Manhattan’s live performance series. For more info, visit MattPavolka.com.
Elijah J. Thomas, Jazz Program Manager
Elijah J. Thomas (he/him) is a Black Philadelphia-born, Harlem-based flutist, multi-instrumentalist, educator, producer, and composer/experimentalist. Elijah studied woodwind performance/improvisation with Dick Oatts, Tim Warfield, Jr., Walter Bell, and Dr. Cynthia Folio; composition with Kevin Rodgers, Dr. Cynthia Folio, and Dr. Maurice Wright; and music education studies with Dr. Rollo Dilworth and Dr. Allison Reynolds. Elijah has held teaching positions with Temple University Music Prep, Settlement Music School, Tune Up Philly (Philadelphia Youth Orchestra), Education Through Music, BASIS Independent Schools, and Carnegie Hall. He creates what he calls “enuff music”: music for Black healing and spiritual transcendence.
Notable work includes the commission and premier of his site-responsive work For Harlem for the new music organization Music At The Anthology, or MATA (debuted at the Kente Royal Gallery in Harlem, NYC, October 2021); collaboration with the International Contemporary Ensemble for their “Ensemble Evolution” partner program with The New School (2020-2024); winner of “Best Film Score” at the Pure Magic International Film Festival for the documentary short Fan of Cory (awarded February 2021 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands); and selection as one of ten commissioned composers of color to participate in the inaugural “Composing Inclusion” program, a joint collaboration between The Juilliard School, New York Philharmonic, and American Composers Forum (powered by the Sphinx Venture Fund, 2022–2024). Elijah is Musical Director of the non-profit performance-based organization Honk NYC!
BKCM Summer Policies
- There are no refunds or credits for private lessons, camps or summer programs.
- All registrations for summer programs and camps are final and there are no withdrawals.
- For more info on summer policies, visit the link below.
- Financial aid is available for qualifying students. Visit the link below to apply.
Watch a Video about the Summer Intensive
An interview with Peter Apfelbaum