Register for Sierra Jazz Camp 2025 NOW!
• June 16th, 2024 through June 20th, 2025 – 9 AM – 4 PM
• At Oak Tree Campus • 18840 Oak Tree Road, Nevada City, CA
• All instrumentalists and vocalists welcome.
Advanced Middle School Students through Adults!
• Only $299 per camper!
Jazz Camp is a fun, focused, and supportive environment. You’ll jam with motivated peers and study with a faculty of professional musicians and educators.
Have you registered yet? Let’s do it!
FACULTY
Michelle Amador – Voice, Vocal Performance, Composition
Michelle Amador’s musical career is the result of a lifetime of familial influence, an exemplary education, and a desire to make the invisible visible through her music, vocal performance and words.
Amador studied choral voice and acting at Menlo School, and attended the University of Southern California to pursue a Bachelor of Fine Arts. After graduating in 1998, Amador continued to pursue music, studying solo jazz voice under award-winning jazz educator Roger Letson, and attending Stanford Jazz Workshop to study voice and jazz arranging.
Amador was invited in 2005 to teach creative composition and vocal performance at the JazzSchool in Berkeley, CA. She also served as artistic director/creator/featured performer for Jazz Beyond, a then-new stage at the San Jose Jazz Festival. There, she premiered her self-released second album, “Michelle Amador & the True Believers,” which featured Michelle’s original jazz hybrid works for voice, tenor saxophone, acoustic bass, drums, keyboard, guitar and turntable.
As part of the Under the Radar series at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in 2006, she debuted as a solo performer, accompanying herself on Rhodes, using a sampler, and premiering three new works.
Michelle’s instrumental compositions continued to be prized by jazz musicians with saxophonist and composer Dayna Stephens recording his arrangement of her work, “Amber is Falling (Red and Yellow)” featuring pianist Brad Mehldau, bassist Larry Grenadier, and drummer Eric Harland in 2017.
“I’m intrigued by visual imagery set to music. My music has always evoked imagery for me personally as I write it and it is a joy to discover what it evokes for other people.” says Amador, regarding the release of singles with accompanying videos.
Throughout her career, Amador has been the recipient of much praise. The San Francisco Chronicle describes her as “silken-voiced” while the San Jose Mercury News proclaims that “Michelle Amador is a new breed of musician…”
From 2023-2024, Michelle was selected as one of 48 out of 1,000 applicants as a CA Established Artist Fellow and was also selected as a grant recipient for the Upstate Creative Corps utilizing the funds to build solidarity in Nevada County, partnering with Color Me Human and engaging and paying 48 artists to contribute to performances and dialogues on activism.
Matt Langley – Saxophones & Camp Director
Matt Langley has studied with Lou Marini of Saturday Night Live, David Baker, Ted Dunbar, and Stan Strickland. He has recorded extensively with the Charlie Kohlhase Quintet, his own group, Color, with pianist Pandelis Karayorgis’ group System of 5, and with Mike Effenberger’s weirdturnpro. Mr. Langley has also shared the stage or recording studio with Ron Carter, Richie Cole, Fred Hersch, John Medeski, Billy Martin, Chris Wood, Matt Wilson, Tiger Okoshi, Roswell Rudd, Dave Douglas, and many others. Since moving to Northern California in 2020, Matt has become active on the music scene in Nevada County and the surrounding area.
Tommy Coster – Piano, Theory, Composition, Music Production & Marketing
By the age of 11 years old, Tommy had co-written his first published song with Carlos Santana, titled “Zulu”, which was included on Santana’s “Moonflower” album in 1977. At 12 he received his first gold album from this collaboration and at 19 Tommy moved to Boston to study “Jazz Composition” at Berklee College of Music.
After co-writing and producing several jazz records with his father, Tommy moved to Los Angeles in 1992 to start a new chapter in his musical career. In 1998 Coster scored his first film for Miramax, and rapper Master P, titled “I Got The Hook Up”. In 1999 Tommy started working with Dr Dre which resulted in him co-writing one of the biggest songs in the history of hip hop with Dr. Dre and Eminem, titled “The Real Slim Shady”. Tommy went on to work with several other artists resulting in the sales of over 80 Million records. Tommy is a 2X Grammy Award Winning writer with several gold and multi platinum awards as well, including 2 RIAA Diamond Awards, certifying over 10 Million copies sold of the “The Marshall Mathers LP” and “Curtian Call” in the United States alone. Only 150 projects in the history of the music business have every reached this level of achievement. Tommy has also been an active film and TV composer with more than 500 credits on IMDB.
Chris Golden – Bass
Chris Golden was born in Cleveland Ohio and raised in Eugene Oregon. The youngest member of a musical family, he enjoyed listening to his older brothers, sisters and mother play the piano, guitar, sing and play drums from a very early age. He began music lessons on piano at age 7 and also took an interest in playing drums soon after. By age 10 Chris had decided to take lessons on upright bass and received classical training until age 15 when he switched to playing the electric bass. Through his teenage years, Chris played in rock, r&b, reggae and jazz groups around town (including a top 40 cover band with his two brothers) until arriving at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. Here he received a scholarship award and earned his bachelor of music degree in bass performance with additional advanced studies in jazz composition.
After attending college Chris spent several more years in Boston touring the Eastern United States and playing gigs around town as well as giving private instruction, until eventually moving to Los Angeles. It was here among the music scene in Hollywood that Chris’ carreer as a professional musician really began to take off. Chris can be heard performing on both electric and upright bass on several platinum and gold albums with such artists as Carly Simon, Engelbert Humperdinck and Art Garfunkel, as well as on the title track of Rod Stewart’s grammy-award-winning album “Stardust.” He has also done numerous TV show appearances, tours and has co-written a song entitled “Gemini” (with Guitarist Brian Kahanek) which is featured on the video game guitar hero II.
Tim Bulkley – Drums
Tim is known for a musical, intuitive approach to drumming. He grew up taking piano lessons, taking art classes, singing in choirs & studying the drums. His professional career as a musician started early and has stayed a constant for over 25 years. He has played and recorded with artists including Dayna Stephens, Michelle Amador, Goh Nakamura, Evan Francis, Anton Schwartz, The Invisible Cities, John Lester, Postmodern Jukebox, Adam Platt, Stacey Kent, Boz Scaggs, Peter Bernstein, Telepathy, Wil Blades, Dandelion Dance Company and BodyVox Dance. Tim spent the years of 2006 – 2017 living and working in Brooklyn NY & 2000 – 2006 living and working in San Francisco CA. Both have informed and inspired how Tim plays music & makes art. Tim began making visual art in 2008 [ after a long hiatus since high school ] and has enjoyed exploring & growing there as well. He has sold works to several individuals since.
9:00-9:30 – Arrival, Instrumental/Vocal warmups
9:30 – 10:45 – Combo Rehearsals
11:00 – Noon – Instrumental Master Classes
alternating with improv classes daily
Noon – 1:00 – Lunch then outdoor activities
1:00 – 2:30 – Large Ensemble Rehearsals
2:45: – 3:45 – Theory Classes or Jam Sessions
4:00 – Departure to go home and PRACTICE!
What is an “Advanced middle school” music student? Good question!
This student will know how to tune their instrument. They will be comfortable with a few octaves of their instrument’s range in the case of wind instrument players. Chordal instrument players should be able to play basic chord voicings in a variety of transpositions. Good music reading skills are a plus. Great listening skills are a plus. If you have any questions or concerns or need further clarification, use the contact form on our site to get in touch and we’ll get right back to you.