Pete Kalvert

Founder/ Director / Teaching Artist

Pete Kalvert is a singer/songwriter, music producer, and NJ State Certified Teacher who has been a music educator for over a decade. A former NYC public school music teacher and teaching-artist with ArtsConnection, the oldest arts-in-education organization in NYC, Pete founded Music Ascension in 1999. Since then, Music Ascension has provided more than 1500 young people in the Tri-State area with instruction in music, Songwriting, Audio-Engineering, and Music Production and has produced over 50 full length CDs featuring the music, lyrics, and words of young people.

A graduate of Brown University and Certified Pro-Tools Operator, Pete studied music at SUNY Purchase and Cabrillo College and worked for several years at Blue Monster Studios in Brooklyn, NY- a studio that specialized in recording traditional West African music. He has performed extensively in NYC and his music has received airplay on KOZT, WBAI, and WFUV.

Peter Fand

Teaching Artist

Peter Fand is a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, music producer and educator from New York City. He has dozens of recording credits, has composed music for films and national television, and has taught music extensively throughout New York City.

After his formal training as a bassist in college, he spent many years studying traditional percussion and the Kora (a 21 string West African harp-lute) in Mali and Guinea, West Africa. He has performed extensively as an instrumentalist and singer with his own ensembles, as well as with some of West Africa’s most celebrated artists.

As a performer, he has appeared at many of New York’s most prestigious venues, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Symphony Space, The Apollo Theater, Celebrate Brooklyn, Joe’s Pub, The Rainbow Room, and countless smaller venues. Peter has worked as a substitute percussionist on the Broadway production of the Lion King and is currently the bass guitarist for Cirque Du Soleil’s TOTEM production.

Pete also owns and runs Red Hook Studios, a state of the art 24 track recording facility in downtown Brooklyn, that is host to some of the most respected world music artists in New York, and beyond.

Claude Coleman Jr.

Teaching Artist

Claude Coleman Jr. is best known as the perversely versatile live/studio drummer for cult-rock gods WEEN. For more than twelve years he has commanded audiences around the globe with his powerfully dynamic performances. His drumming talents have also been well employed by many other artists including CHOCOLATE GENIUS and ELYSIAN FIELDS.

A multi-instrumentalist, Coleman is also the singer/songwriter for his own group Amandla and the owner/operator of recording studio J Town Studio, in his resident town of Jersey City,NJ and has received critical acclaim for his independently released debut record, Falling Alone. In addition to his work at Music Ascension, Claude is the Director of the Paul Green School of Rock in NYC where he also teaches drums, guitar, bass, and vocals.

Shawntay Dickerson

Former student now On-Site Studio Director / Workshop Facilitator

Shawntay is talented young women who graduated from St. Thomas Aquinas College in Rockland County. She has a beautiful and powerful voice that matches her rapport with children. A former participant of Music Ascension, Shawntay has written and recorded many great songs and has proven herself an exceptionally capable workshop facilitator. She has worked several summers as the on-site Director of Music Ascension at Morry’s Camp.

Raphael Rivera

Former student now Teaching Artist/ Studio Engineer / Workshop Facilitator

While still in high school, Raphael trained with Pete Kalvert for several summers at Project Morry where he became a highly successful Studio Engineer and Music Ascension Workshop Facilitator. This experience provided Raphael with a real competitive edge over his classmates at Hofstra University where he majored in Communications (Audio and Radio). Raphael’s inherent creativity, dedication to his work, and drive for perfection propelled him to work as an Assistant Teaching Artist at Chancellor Academy where he helped deliver a year-long music Residency Program to high school students. Raphael has interned at WQHT Hot 97 FM as well as WBAI. He is the Creative Services Director at R34 Productions, and is also a creative services/production assistant for GoomRadio.com.

Jesse Barnes

Teaching Artist

Jesse Barnes grew up playing blues and shining shoes in his father’s barbershop in Cleveland, Ohio. A guitarist and songwriter, he has since been on the move creatively, establishing strong musical ties in New Orleans, Chicago, Rio and New York. Jesse’s influences range from Antonio Carlos Jobim to Outkast and he is grateful to have worked with an eclectic mix of artists, including; Lulu Gainsbourg, Eli “Paperboy” Reed, The High and Mighty Brass Band, Luca Mundaca, Jamie Haddad, Snarky Puppy and many more.

Jesse has also become an in-demand teaching artist, leading music residencies with under-served students both in New York and Cleveland. So far in 2011, he is busy working with students at several schools, touring the world with a soul band, and recording new music set for release in the fall.

grew up playing blues and shining shoes in his father’s barbershop in Cleveland, Ohio. A guitarist and songwriter, he has since been on the move creatively, establishing strong musical ties in New Orleans, Chicago, Rio and New York. Jesse’s influences range from Antonio Carlos Jobim to Outkast and he is grateful to have worked with an eclectic mix of artists, including; Lulu Gainsbourg, Eli “Paperboy” Reed, The High and Mighty Brass Band, Luca Mundaca, Jamie Haddad, Snarky Puppy and many more.

Jon Siapno

Teaching Artist

Jon Siapno is a New York City-based composer/lyricist whose work for stage and screen has been produced in Berkeley, CA and NYC. He has performed at Madison Square Garden and various theatres Off-Off Broadway in collaboration with five-time Tony nominee Liz Swados, and has served as an apprentice to the conductors of WICKED on Broadway and in San Francisco while studying at NYU. Jon has taught elementary and secondary music in NYC public schools and has music directed and recorded CDs with children at numerous camps in the San Francisco Bay Area and Upstate New York. Jon is a member of the Dramatist’s Guild and is currently completing his MA in sociology and educational policy at Columbia University.