Tom Lockwood

Featured Woodwind Instructor

Saxophones/Clarinets/Flute

After starting on clarinet in the fifth grade, Tom studied sax, flute and bass, and also arranged for and directed his high school's jazz, pep, and show bands. He began to play in working bands while in high school as well. After high school, he attended the Berklee College of music in Boston and then Western Michigan University, earning a B.M. in Jazz Studies and a M.M. in Woodwind Performance. At this time, he began working with some of the best jazz musicians in the Midwest, and performing in concerts and shows with everyone from David Liebman to Engelbert Humperdink. He worked as a musician on a number of cruise ships and then settled in Grand Rapids, MI, where he became an in-demand jazz bassist and woodwind doubler, performing in pit orchestras as well as jazz and contemporary music groups. He has been a college-level instructor for over twenty years, and currently teaches at Hope College, in Holland, MI. He is a clinician and adjudicator for high school jazz band and festivals, and has taught at Birch Creek (WI) Music Center, Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, and the Aquinas College Jazz Camp. Tom released a recording last year with Rob Ryndak, Gratitude, featuring trumpeter Brian Lynch, on Pacific Coast Jazz Records.

Teaches In Person on Wednesdays/Video Chat Lessons on Tuesdays

Ashley Beck

Notes from The Instructors 

The math-music connection shines in the field of education as well. Research shows that children who learn their academics through music and dance retain the information better than children who learn the same concepts by verbal instruction.                               -VANCOUVER SUN FILES