Orono

Carson has played piano since she was four years old. She grew up in Texas and participated in many music and dance extracurricular activities in school. Carson attended West Texas A&M University where she earned a Bachelor of Music Therapy degree with an instrumental emphasis in piano. She was an active member of both the university orchestra and choir and taught piano students while attending college. Carson taught Kindermusik lessons to young children for two years at Kindermusik of CS-B in Texas, and she currently provides music therapy services at an assisted living facility in Minneapolis. Carson’s favorite part of both teaching and music therapy is getting to see how music helps people change and grow throughout their lives.

Joe has been playing guitar for over 15 years and has been teaching for over a decade. He is a well versed Guitar, Bass, Ukulele, Drums, and Piano instructor. He plays a variety of genres from funk/jam band to reggae to progressive metal. Joe graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Music Education at Saint Cloud State University and continued studying Guitar Performance at McNally Smith College. He has years of experience working with kids teaching private lessons and has owned and operated the Kracker Jacks Drumline since 2015. No matter the time of the day, Joe can be found spreading the word: “Music is a language we all know how to speak. Some of us just don’t know it yet.”

Guitar Repairs

Joe has been repairing guitars for nearly 10 years. His work covers everything from pickup mods, parallel/series wiring, to full refrets. Whether you need a cracked headstock glued, to deck out your Squier/Epiphone with upgraded parts, or just a restring/setup, Joe has you covered!

Matt is a pianist, composer, improviser, and educator currently based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He received a Bachelor of Music degree with a self-designed major in contemporary improvisation at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin. While at Lawrence, Matt had the opportunity to study with Tim Albright, Bill Carrothers, Patty Darling, José Encarnación, Michael Mizrahi, Anthony Padilla, and Matt Turner. Since relocating to Minneapolis, his latest projects include performing with YINS, a duo with drummer Devin Drobka; Collector, an improvising piano trio with bassist Jakob Heinemann and Devin Drobka; Work Friends, a jazz quintet dedicated to playing all original music; and Slipstream, a chamber quartet that focuses on the commissioning and performing of new music. In addition to these projects, Matt has had the honor of performing with John Christensen, Barry Paul Clark, José Encarnación, Jonathan Greenstein, Russ Johnson, Christopher Porterfield, Hal Rammel, Dane Richeson, Chris Weller, and Minneapolis based dance trio Kelvin Wailey. As a part of Slipstream, Matt has premiered new compositions by Patrick Marschke, John Mayrose, JP Merz, Chris Misch-Bloxdorf, and David Werfelmann. Matt has also been regularly performing solo, either on solo piano or solo prepared Fender Rhodes and electronics. In June of 2017, Matt recorded his first solo record with drummer Dave King (The Bad Plus, Happy Apple) as producer. The recording, Shadow Sets, features eight original compositions for solo piano and was released in April of 2018.