Improvise. Collaborate. Perform.
Coached by acclaimed jazz musicians, BKCM’s Adult Jazz Ensembles help instrumentalists and vocalists to hone their musicality, grow as improvisers and immerse themselves in jazz history, form and theory. We offer two weekly evening ensembles – Jazz Foundations, for adults students with minimal prior experience learning jazz, and Jazz Lab, for more experienced jazz musicians who are looking to deepen their skills and meet new collaborators.
JAZZ FOUNDATIONS
Adult students who are completely new to jazz music, desire to renew their understanding of historic fundamentals of jazz, and have minimal experience playing jazz in an ensemble setting are welcome to join this class. Students explore the basic modes for improvising, gain familiarity with the blues form and develop an understanding of how to improvise over chord changes. Students explore jazz swing feel and phrasing and how each instrument functions in a group. Our faculty perform alongside the students in a mentorship model experience.
COURSE SECTIONS
Tuesdays, 7:00-8:00 PM
JAZZ LAB
Adult musicians with extensive experience on their instrument and performing jazz music in an ensemble setting have the opportunity to collaborate, improvise, rehearse and develop confidence in their jazz playing. Students work with a broad range of challenging jazz repertoire, highlighting various musical forms and standard selections from the Great American Songbook while digging deeper into the world of improvisation. Our faculty perform alongside the students in a mentorship model experience.
COURSE SECTIONS
Sundays, 2:00-3:30 PM, 3:30-5:00 PM
Mondays, 8:00-9:30 PM
Tuesdays, 8:15-9:45 PM
Wednesdays, 8:00-9:30 PM
Thursdays, 8:00-9:30 PM
PLACEMENT AND AUDITIONS
Applications for Fall 2026 Adult Jazz programs will open on July 6. All are welcome to apply, but returning students will receive priority placement through July 30.
First-Time Adult Jazz Applicants
All first-time students who have not previously participated in an Adult Jazz Ensemble or Jazz Vocal Lab must complete a short application form and submit an audition video so that we can place them in an appropriate section. To apply, click the button below.
Returning Adult Jazz Students
If you have taken Jazz Foundations, Jazz Lab, or Jazz Vocal Lab before, you must still fill out the application form below, but you are not required to submit an audition. Until July 30, returning students will receive priority for section placement. All are still welcome to apply after July 30, but we cannot guarantee that spaces in all ensembles will still be available after July 30.
Financial Aid
To learn more about Financial Aid and apply, click here.
PROGRAM ELEMENTS
ADULT JAZZ ENSEMBLE FACULTY
Peter Apfelbaum
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
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
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!
For any additional questions related to this course, please contact the Jazz Program Manager at elijah.thomas@bkcm.org.