Creativity. Teamwork. Personal Voice.
With a storied tradition and a teaching faculty made up of some of New York City’s most innovative and respected jazz musicians, the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music’s Jazz Program offers classes and ensembles for kids, teens and adults. In a joyful and rigorous learning environment, students are immersed in the technique, history, theory and vibrant present of diverse jazz genres and traditions, learning core improvisational skills and developing their musicianship.
Jazz Classes & Ensembles
JAZZ TRAVELERS
GRADES 6-10
Jazz Travelers is BKCM’s premier jazz program for students in grades 6 to 10. Students are introduced to the rich cultural history and musical practices of jazz music in a joyful and rigorous learning environment, anchored by a faculty of singularly gifted jazz musicians and educators who share their talents with audiences across New York City and the world.
ADULT JAZZ ENSEMBLES
ADULTS (18+)
With a Jazz Foundations class for musicians who are newer to jazz and a Jazz Lab for more experienced players, our Adult Jazz Ensembles offer adult students the opportunity to learn a broad range of jazz repertoire, highlighting various musical forms and selections from the Great American Songbook while digging deeper into the world of improvisation. BKCM faculty perform and improvise alongside the students in a mentorship model experience.
JAZZ VOCAL LAB
ADULTS (18+)
Working with acclaimed jazz vocalist Annie Chen and a piano accompanist, students in this workshop hone their vocal technique and their craft as jazz singers, developing a sensibility to jazz rhythms and an understanding of the stylistic intricacies of swing, jazz and blues through scat singing and lyric interpretation. This course also explores and analyzes the vocal stylings of leaders in the jazz vocal world such as Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and modern singers such as Betty Carter and Samara Joy.
Summer Jazz Programs
BKCM SUMMER JAZZ CAMP
AGES 10-16
This weeklong summer jazz camp is all about playing. Each day of camp is filled with ensemble rehearsals, masterclasses, workshops, jazz theory and performances. Students advance their skills playing several hours each day and working with our incredible jazz faculty in practice and performance. Students who are new to jazz will build tools for improvising over simple chord changes, grooves and forms. Advanced students dive into challenging repertoire from the jazz canon and beyond.
JAZZ LAB SUMMER INTENSIVE
ADULTS (18+)
This invigorating weeklong summer session is open to adult string, woodwind, brass, piano and drum/percussion players and vocalists who are looking to expand their jazz knowledge and improvisational skills. In a small-ensemble setting, participants collaborate, improvise, rehearse and jam with BKCM’s talented jazz faculty. They learn learn new jazz repertoire, develop their improvisational skills and musicality, and develop confidence in their ability to perform in public.
The BKCM Jazz Leaders Fellowship (JLF)
Established in 2021, the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music’s Jazz Leaders Fellowship connects Black women and Black non-binary jazz musicians with resources to further develop their craft and pursue projects that advance their careers, including:
- A $12,500 unrestricted grant
- Teaching and performance opportunities
- Free rehearsal space at BKCM
The JLF program was conceived by BKCM Board member Daniel DiPietro and developed by the Jazz Leaders Fellowship Committee, led by musician and educator Fay Victor. The fellowship is made possible by the generous support of DiPietro and his wife Alexis, as well as support from the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation, Inc.
Applications for the fellowship are open each year from April to May. If you are interested in learning more about the Jazz Leaders Fellowship or applying in the future, please visit the page below.
Jazz Program Faculty
Adriel Vincent-Brown, Drums & Percussion
Adriel Shane Vincent-Brown is a Trinidadian musician living in New York. Brown has managed to establish himself as a worthy contender and is already beginning to make a name for himself and his country. Growing up in Trinidad, his love for music began as a child watching his father Kenneth Vincent-Brown play the drums in church, the instrument that would eventually claim him. After secondary school, Vincent-Brown moved to New York to attend the New School College of Performing Arts to further hone and develop his skills. The New School is well known for producing top-class musicians such as Grammy Award-winning singer, pianist and producer Robert Glasper.
According to Vincent-Brown, the Caribbean has preserved African culture in a very unique way, especially through the drums, and has managed to create a sound unlike any other African-influenced genre in the world. “It’s in the rhythmic core of our music and it’s something that no one else has.” Despite his age, Vincent-Brown has a promising career as a musician and is prepared to continue growing and exploring all avenues that his career may take him. As for his plans for the future, he wants to get his own music and band up and running, as well as producing.
Allison Philips, Brass & Jazz Travelers Coordinator
Allison Philips is a Brooklyn-based trumpet player, composer, and educator. Philips is a trumpet player’s trumpet player. From the traditional trio setting to genre-bending explorations via electronics, Allison is always searching for new ground.
Jazz Scene has called The Allison Philips Trio “an invigorating listen that probes, as Ornette Coleman did, the line between song and sonic exploration.” The group released their first EP in 2017 and released their first album “Placement and Longing” in 2021. Philips also co-leads the “DeiCont | Philips Collective” a group which Hot House Magazine has called “one of the most exciting emerging groups in NY”. The Allison Philips Trio and the DeiCont | Philips Collective have toured domestically and throughout Europe and Canada. Allison has also recently started a new, New York-based quartet project. Currently Allison is actively leading her quartet project with Neta Raanan (Tenor Sax), Isaac Levien (Bass) and Connor Parks (Drums). Their debut album “Make it Better” will be released on Dox Records on May 16th, 2025.
Allison has also performed with Alfa Mist, The Jonas Brothers, Japanese Breakfast, Sara McDonald’s “NY Chillharmonic”, Yo La Tengo, Alita Moses, Sungazer, Aberdeen, The Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra, and many others. She has performed on many acclaimed stages, including Carnegie Hall, The Bimhuis, Birdland Jazz Club, The North Sea Jazz Festival, The Bern Jazz Festival, The Festival of New Trumpet Music, Le Poisson Rouge, PENG Festival, The Jazz Standard, NJPAC, and many others.
Philips holds a BFA in Jazz Performance from the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York City and an MM in Jazz Performance from the Conservatorium van Amsterdam in The Netherlands. Philips was the 2016 recipient of the Hal Leonard Collegiate Scholarship. She has recently been awarded a New York Foundation of The Arts “City Artist Corp” grant. Between teaching and performing throughout Europe and North America, Allison spends her time commuting on her bicycle in Brooklyn and eating at B&H Dairy in the East Village. She is currently on the faculty at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music and The Kent Place School.
Annie Chen, Jazz Vocals
Annie Chen is a vocalist, composer, and bandleader from Beijing, based in New York since 2013. Her distinctive style draws on a rich continuum of musical traditions from Asia, Europe, and the Americas. This creative vision – showcased on her releases Pisces the Dreamer (2014), Secret Treetop (2018) and Guardians (2024) – is supported by years of experience in China’s jazz, blues, and funk scenes as well as active study and collaboration within New York’s vibrant jazz community.
As a bandleader and composer, Chen has performed extensively in prestigious NYC venues including the Blue Note, Cornelia St. Cafe, Nublu, Flushing Town Hall, DROM, Shapeshifter Lab, and Club Bonafide. In China, she has brought her music to festivals such as Solana Summertime Festival, Chaoyang Music Festival, Beijing Nine-Gates Jazz Festival, CD Jazz Week, and the Shanghai International Jazz Festival, as well as venues such as Blue Note Beijing, East Shore Jazz Club, DDC, JiangHu, Guangzhou Xinghai Concert Hall and JZ Club Shanghai and Hangzhou. At JZ Club Hangzhou she led a band as artist in residence in 2015, 2016, and 2018.
Annie’s current focus is her Guardians ensemble, whose self-titled debut released to critical acclaim on February 23, 2024 on JZ Music. Centered on an environmentally themed programmatic suite, the album features a dynamic cast of improvisers including Satoshi Takeishi (percussion), Fung Chern Hwei (violin), Vitor Goncalves (piano/accordion), Alex LoRe (woodwinds), Marius Duboule (guitar), and Mat Muntz (bass). The project combines Annie’s compositional sense of storytelling and imagery with an experimental improvisational vocabulary, representing an exciting new chapter in her creative output. Annie is also an experienced educator, having offered extensive, recurring masterclasses on vocal jazz performance and jazz appreciation as part of her residency in Hangzhou, China. In addition to online private and group lessons, Chen was recently commissioned by Beijing’s Ear King Music Company to produce Jazz Singing Masterclass Vol.1, an educational video series intended for students in China. As part of her mission to forge connections between distant musical worlds, she is also producing JZ Club on Air, a radio show dedicated to exposing Chinese audiences to the diverse and forward-thinking jazz currently emerging from New York.
Charlotte Greve, Woodwinds
Charlotte Greve is a Brooklyn-based alto saxophonist, composer, and singer originally from Germany. She has released nine albums as a leader, two of which received the ECHO Jazz Prize. In 2022 she was awarded “Artist of the Year” at the German Jazz Prize. Charlotte’s large-scale multi-genre piece Sediments We Move was released on New Amsterdam and Figureight Records in October 2021 and received significant attention, such as “Best 25 Classical Tracks of 2021” and “5 Classical Albums to Hear Right Now” (New York Times).
Charlotte has received several composition commissions over the past years and recently premiered Breathe, a co-composed piece for the award-winning vocal ensemble Lorelei. As a woodwind player and singer she is an active side-person across genres and continues to collaborate with musicians such as Laura Veirs, Chris Morrissey, Shahzad Ismaily and others.
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!
Jeong Lim Yang, Bass
Native South Korean bassist Jeong Lim Yang has been a prominent figure in New York City’s music scene since 2011, collaborating with notable artists such as Jason Palmer, Oscar Noriega, John Chin, and Kenny Wollesen. Her debut album as a leader and composer, *Déjà Vu* (Fresh Sound, 2017), was honored as NPR’s “Best Debut Album of the Year.” Yang has also released two albums with the experimental Brooklyn-based collective *Mute*: the self-titled *Mute* (Fresh Sound, 2020) and *After You’ve Gone* (Endectomorph, 2024), both of which received international recognition.
In 2022, she unveiled her project with Santiago Leibson and Gerald Cleaver, *Zodiac Suite: Reassured* (Fresh Sound), a reimagining of Mary Lou Williams’s *Zodiac Suite* (1945). The Zodiac Trio has been actively performing across the United States and abroad at venues like Lincoln Center, SF Jazz, and the Angel City Jazz Festival. In early 2025, Yang released a quartet album featuring her original compositions titled *Synchronicity* (Sunnyside, 2025), collaborating with bandmates Mat Maneri, Jacob Sacks, and Randy Peterson. Her lyrical and melodic approach to playing is highly sought after by artists in contemporary jazz and improvised music.
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.
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.”
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.”
Sean Moran, Guitar
Sean Moran is a guitarist and composer based in Brooklyn, NY. He has performed at New York venues such as Lincoln Center, Celebrate Brooklyn, The Stone, BAM, Roulette, and Symphony Space as well as playing in Japan, Europe, and throughout the U.S. His music has been featured on WNYC’s “Soundcheck” and “Spinning on Air”, as well as at Merkin Concert Hall. He plays with the chamber quartet “The Four Bags”, the avant metal trio “Bassoon”, leads his own group “Sun Tiger”, and performs with many other NYC-based groups. He has been a regular sub for the hit Broadway show “Hadestown” since it opened in 2019.
Hailed as “A forward thinking guitarist”(Chinen) by the NY Times, Sean has also performed and/or recorded in many groups featuring a wide variety of artists including Jackie Cain, Briggan Krauss, Teo Macero, Ron Mclure, Stew, Earl Mcintyre, Michael J. Schumacher, and Pamelia Kurstin among many others. Sean has been a longtime faculty member of the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, where he teaches in the Jazz program.