As a professional educator, I am currently a member of the specialist teaching team on the Young Musicians Programme (Centre for Advanced Training) based at The Glasshouse International Centre for Music (Gateshead, UK), The Royal Irish Academy of Music (Dublin, Ireland), Castleknock School of Music (Dublin, Ireland), and peripatetic guitar tutor. I have taught in a variety of settings, working with students from all ages and abilities.
I specialise in jazz guitar (both plectrum and finger-style techniques) and theoretical and practical approaches to improvisation. In addition, I feel comfortable working across the full range of jazz, classical, folk, popular, rock and commercial music styles. Furthermore, I have also led multi-instrumental workshops on jazz and improvisation. My PGCE teaching placement took place on the BMus degree programme at The Glasshouse ICM (formerly Sage Gateshead) where I taught Advanced Jazz Theory and Practical Skills (including Improvisation and directed the Guitar Ensemble).
From 2014 - 2019, I was part of the tutor team on the ‘Rick Taylor Ensemble Week’ based on the Isle Of Skye, which took place annually during the Easter period. The purpose of the week was to The course content covered a variety of styles from classical, folk, blues, to jazz / improvisation.
From 2021, I have been part of the teaching team for the award-winning community ‘Jazz.Coop' based at The Globe (Newcastle, UK). During this time I also ran both the Jazz Guitar programme and Analyse to Improvise classes which focused on technique, transcription, harmonic analysis, and authentic improvisation. Furthermore, I have also led PlayJazz workshops on topics such as ‘Rhythm Changes’ and ‘Easing The Flow Of Improvisation’ - developing learners' improvisation skills and enhancing their musicianship skills.
At the 2017 Gateshead International Jazz Festival, I supported an improvisation workshop with world leading tutors of jazz, Nikki Iles and Stan Sulzmann, as part of The Globe's Jazz Cooperative PlayJazz sessions.
Furthermore, I am fully DBS / Garda Vetted.
For any more information regarding teaching for workshops / ensemble work, please do get in touch.