Workshops
The Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival offers a wide variety of workshops every year which are free and open to all! Renowned artists and educators from around the nation lead workshops on jazz and more during the Thursday, Friday, and Saturday sessions.
Workshop Schedule
View the 2025 Workshop Schedule.
Workshop descriptions
Accompanying Jazz Vocalists on Guitar | Will St. Peter
I would like to give a presentation on common practices and techniques for guitarists who are accompanying jazz vocalists. I plan on collaborating with Dr Kate Skinner to show how guitarists can effectively accompany jazz vocalists in various grooves and styles including medium swing, up tempos, ballads, waltzes, bossa novas, and more.
Body Percussion | Hannah Turner
Be your own instrument as you improvise with your body. Experience body “scales,” uneven rhythms and syncopation. Come ready to move and have fun!
Broadway Jazz | Colleen Bialas and Kaylee Clough
Experience rich dynamic changes and move with a distinct style and a confident stage presence. Don’t forget your jazz hands!
Contemporary | Belle Baggs
Stretch your potential in this contemporary modern class that focuses on spinal expression, musicality, rhythm, and fluidity. Dance to live music and develop individual style.
Creative Movement | Melanie Meenan
Explore movement concepts through guided explorations, improvisational games, and movement creation prompts in this class for all-ages and all movement abilities.
Customize A Tune - Harmonization and Chord substitution | Clay Giberson
Demonstrate different approaches on a jazz standard - diatonic and chromatic.
Dance Conditioning | Hannah Turner
Come work up a sweat with exercises that are based off Pilates, yoga and barre classes. Enjoy moving to the music and learning about healthy practices to support your flexibility, strength, and coordination.
Disco Jazz | Gracie Kennedy and Alina Steichen
Do you love the throwback beats of Earth, Wind and Fire, The Tramps, and The Bee Gees? If so, come learn some sweet 70s jazz dance moves to groovy tunes!
Hey That's Not Jazz!? Secrets of Arranging Pop Tunes for Jazz Groups | James Miley
When arranging popular songs for jazz ensembles (large or small), it can be all too easy to get caught up in the original version and find oneself "stuck" trying to make it work in a jazz setting without losing the essence of the original recording. This workshop will explore different ways to translate pop and rock into jazz by diving into the details of select successful arrangements (Soundgarden, Lorde, Coldplay, etc) and discussing various ways to uncover jazz and jazz-related elements already present in the music.
Hot Club Jazz | Max Wolpert
Let's explore this strings-forward European jazz tradition. We'll learn a tune by guitarist Django Reinhardt, and take apart a transcription of violinist Stéphane Grappelli. Open to all instruments!
Hip Hop | Vandal Hip Hop Club and Alina Steichen and Kaylee Clough
Come lock and pop to the beat. Don’t miss this highly energetic workshop that will get the rhythm going in your body. Learn the latest steps from this vibrant dance form that is infused with jazz, funk, and down to earth movement.
ICM Guided Listening Session: Carnatic + Hindustani music | Arun Ramamurthy
This workshop breaks down compositional / improvisational forms and structures in Carnatic + Hindustani music. We'll briefly explore historical context before listening to rerious ragas and talas by Masters from each style. Topics covered will include the violin's history in India, onstage interaction between musicians, freedom vs. structure, etc. This session will be an open format, and questions are welcomed.
Improvisation for Everyone: Compelling jazz solos whether you know music theory or not! | Kate Olson
Have you ever wanted to level up your improvisation skills, but feel like you don't have the music theory background to take really compelling solos? Have you learned all the "right" notes to play but still feel like your solos fall flat? Let's learn to use our ears, active listening skills, and a set of seven easy to master concepts to take consistently exciting solos!
It’s All You: How Your Solo Moves the Big Band Forward | Rob Wilkerson
Pulling from the melody, arrangement, and pre-planned ideas to create solos that help your ensemble move forward.
Jam Session Ready: Learn a Tune By Ear | Steve Treseler
Jazz is social music, and jam sessions are where musicians meet, learn from one another, and gain experience. We will learn jazz tune through call and response (rather than sheet music) and explore user-friendly approaches for improvising. Bring your instrument/voice, no previous improvisation experience required.
Jazz and Anime | Jeff Kyong-McClain
Jazz and affiliated genres are important components explaining the success of anime in Japan and the world. This session, co-taught by historians Jeff Kyong-McClain and Rebecca Scofield and media scholar Yasheng She, will introduce the connections. After Profs. Kyong-McClain and Scofield introduce the arrival of Jazz in East Asia in the 1920s, and the global success of "Cool Japan" pop culture in the 1980s and 90s and beyond, Prof. She will detail the rise to lofi culture such as the lofi study girl phenomenon today, especially the case of Nujabes, who was a Japanese audio engineer, DJ, composer and arranger best known for his atmospheric instrumental mixes sampling from hip hop, soul, jazz, and ambient music. His work gave certain animated works, such as Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo, a transnational identity and continues to shape the sonic identity of anime as an expanding genre.
Jazz Pizazz | Colleen Bialas and Grace Tish
It’s all about rhythm and energy! Immerse yourself and reinforce your sense of dynamics, rhythm and especially syncopation with movement.
Keyboard Voicings: A Functional Approach | Clay Giberson
Demonstrating how to build chord voicings for songs for solo piano or comping within a group. Using example tunes with functional and chromatic harmony. Considering a linear approach. 2 to 6 note chords. Using chord extensions.
12 Keys to Jazz Fluency | Rob Wilkerson
Bring your horns for a hands-on workshop demonstrating how learning short melodies and jazz vocabulary in all 12 keys can bring your playing to the next level.
Math in the Music Scale | Mark Nielsen
Have you ever wondered how we ended up with the 12 tones in our chromatic scale? Why divide the octave into exactly 12 steps? Why not 10 steps or 20 steps? And how did we choose from those 12 the seven tones of our diatonic scale? Some surprising mathematics gives t