Julie Fischer is a dedicated teacher, and performer, and has more than 20 years of experience teaching kids and adults of all ages and levels. She has taught in the university, conservatory, community music school, and private studio setting. Julie has experience teaching children with autism spectrum disorder, behavior disorders, developmental delays, low muscle tone, and beyond. She also has experience with helping students identify places of tension in their bodies, to help get rid of pain, and prevent it before it begins. Julie is also an avid chamber musician, and has won 3 medals in the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. She has also subbed with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. She was previously in the Azmari Quartet, in residence at Northern Kentucky University. She is currently on the chamber music faculty of the Midwest Young Artists. She has appeared as soloist with multiple orchestras, a few being the Pacific Palisades Symphony, Evanston Symphony, and Kishwaukee Symphony.

Julie studied at the New England Conservatory of Music and received her Graduate Diploma from Lucy Chapman, and her Masters of Music from Donald Weilerstein, where she was his teaching assistant. She received her Bachelors of Music from the Cleveland Institute of Music from Donald Weilerstein. Her prior teachers were Almita and Roland Vamos, Thomas Wermuth, and Paula Eatman. Many of Julie’s students have gone on to be professional musicians, attending the Juilliard school, New England Conservatory, Harvard, Hartt School, and Lawrence University. Importantly,Julie feels that a music education is not necessarily to create another musician, but to create a beautiful, well rounded person who has an understanding of the subtleties of music/life/people. Julie currently teaches privately, and at the Music Institute of Chicago. Back to top ▲Statistics are great, right? They can be used to support or debunk theories, and, on rare occasions, win or lose arguments. I recently read a story (with an accompanying bar graph) about the vocations that employed the highest and lowest percentage of people actually schooled for those jobs.

At the very top of the list were classical musicians, who were right up there with surgeons and attorneys. If you imagine that decades of lessons and thousands of practice hours at the New England Conservatory or Julliard is what it takes to get a rocking position with a big-time orchestra, you’d be correct. At the absolute bottom end of the spectrum—where many of us grovel—is the so-called “pop” musician. Rock, blues, pop, and jazz musicians are represented on the aforementioned graph with a dismally small amount of formal training. Carpet Cleaning Machine For Rent Home DepotThey basically reside alongside dog walkers and bloggers (ahem) in terms of relevant education. St Bernard Puppies For Sale NcAnd it got me wondering: How many of us got into music and guitar while thinking about it as a job and charting out a course to achieve success? Homes For Sale On Oxenden Crescent Etobicoke

By definition, a musician is someone who performs music—especially professionally. So if it isn’t your job, what exactly is it? I’ll wager that a lot of us were drawn to music simply because of the pleasure it brought to our lives, without much weight given to its viability as a career. With varying degrees of tolerance for structured learning, some pursue formal training through lessons from a local teacher and then move on to schools like Musicians Institute or Berklee. This route seems remarkably like an actual career plan. Still, others eschew the protocol and stiffness of “proper” schooling for the more freewheeling setting of a band/scene situation where they can be free to develop unhindered by theory and regiment. Either way, immersion in a musical environment can be a stimulating and rewarding path, even if the ultimate destination of that path may not be known. A paying job as a guitarist is never going to be in the cards for many, but once music is in your blood, it’s a lifetime condition.

Sounds like a description of certain diseases, doesn’t it? This would explain 50-year-old men in black T-shirts ambling around a small bar stage performing “Mustang Sally” or “Enter Sandman” to a few dozen of their friends and family. As the old joke goes, a musician is someone who will load $5,000 worth of gear into a $1,000 car to drive 100 miles to play a $50 gig. Is this the definition of pleasure? In the greater scheme of things, I submit that it is. Pursuits like skiing or bowling offer personal pleasure and demonstrate a level of skill—much like performing music. These things are routinely referred to as recreational activities and meet the criteria for hobbies. Yet playing the guitar (and music in general) is rarely called a hobby. And even though we collect gear the way Imelda Marcos hoarded shoes, I doubt that the directors at NAMM refer to it as such. There’s a good reason for that: Music is spiritual. Music connects human beings to something larger than themselves.

Perhaps a hang glider feels closer to the heavens, but his or her sense of rapture is private. Music is the only thing I can think of that envelopes everyone in a room and moves those who hear it. Your foot taps and your spirit is lifted without having to understand words. And when we make music, we become godlike for an instant. There is pleasure received for both the musician and the listener, whether we are recreating the rush of the first time we heard a guitar or potentially offering that feeling to others through the strings beneath our fingers. With the power of rhythm, harmony, and melody, we connect to each other and experience emotions. Music allows us to feel alive—something you can’t show on a spreadsheet. And if that’s a hobby, it’s a damn good one for everybody.New England Conservatory - Brown Hall One-Week Intensive Jazz Program for Students Ages 14 – 18 Sunday, June 26 – Friday, July 1, 2016 Faculty Includes Ken Schaphorst, Ran Blake, Dominique Eade, Rakalam Bob Moses, Allan Chase and moreStudents ages 14 — 18 are invited to spend a week in the city eating and breathing jazz with some of the best musicians in the country and make friendships that will last a lifetime at New England Conservatory’s Jazz Lab.

It’s a one-week intensive program for students from throughout the United States and abroad. Instrumentalists and vocalists are welcome, as are small ensembles. No pre-audition is required. The program takes place Sunday, June 26 – Friday, July 1, 2016. Both day and overnight students are welcome. During Jazz Lab students surround themselves with like-minded musicians and take their jazz training to the next level. Unlike many other summer jazz programs, NEC's Jazz Lab offers both an intimate setting for learning combined with the rich urban landscape of Boston. Students work with NEC’s premier jazz faculty and participate in a curriculum full of improvisation, small group training, jam sessions, entrepreneurial workshops and college audition prep. Jazz lab faculty include NEC Jazz Studies Department Chair Ken Schaphorst, pianist David Zoffer, bassist Rick McLaughlin and trombonist/Jazz Lab Artistic Director Tim Lienhard. Special guest artists include the legendary pianist Ran Blake, renowned vocalist Dominique Eade, percussionist Rakalam Bob Moses and saxophonist Allan Chase.In addition to daily theory/improvisation classes, small ensemble coaching, and one on one instruction, Jazz Lab will feature seminars in entrepreneurship and training for careers in music.

NEC jazz alumni talk about what it takes to promote music, produce concerts, build a private teaching studio and find success as a 21st century jazz musician. Faculty will also instruct students on applying to conservatories, schools of music and universities; what to look for in potential colleges and techniques for a successful audition.Tuition is $895, which includes all classes, nightly faculty concerts, jam sessions, one private lesson with faculty, t-shirt, lunch and dinner daily (dietary needs are accommodated). Overnight students pay an additional $495 for five nights’ housing, including daily breakfast. For more information about or to register for this dynamic program, visit http://necmusic.edu/jazz-lab Questions? Contact: jazzlab@necmusic.eduNEC’s Jazz Studies Department was the first fully accredited jazz studies program at a music conservatory. The brainchild of Gunther Schuller, who moved quickly to incorporate jazz into the curriculum when he became President of the Conservatory in 1967, the Jazz Studies faculty has included six MacArthur "genius" grant recipients (three currently teaching) and four NEA Jazz Masters, and alumni that reads like a who’s who of jazz.