Schubert Club & Walker|West Music Academy present this FREE workshop that is a one-of-a-kind opportunity for students to explore jazz piano, meet peers with similar interests, and learn from renowned jazz pianists from the Twin Cities! Designed for middle and high school students that can read music and have a minimum of 1 year of piano experience, students will work on playing jazz piano in small groups with clinicians. Students with no jazz experience whatsoever to students with advanced jazz experience are encouraged to attend, and will be placed in groups based on ability.
Four scholarships of $300 each will be awarded for lessons with one of our local piano clinicians. Scholarships are provided by endowments to Schubert Club from the families of Marie Froehlich, Jane Matteson and David Paulus. Scholarship winners will be announced online after the workshop.
2026 Clinicians
Jack Barrett is a pianist and educator specializing in jazz and classical piano, with an emphasis on improvisation. He holds degrees in Classical Piano Performance and Music Education. Jack serves as Head of the Piano Department at Walker West Music Academy and also teaches at MCTC Community College. His work integrates classical rigor with jazz fluency, guiding students toward strong technical foundations and expressive, creative musicianship.
Kavyesh Kaviraj is a pianist, composer and arranger from India. Kavyesh has found acclaim in the US since his move to Minneapolis in 2016. In 2017, he graduated from Columbia College Chicago with a Bachelor’s Degree in Jazz Studies. In 2020, Kavyesh graduated with a Master of Music degree, receiving a full tuition grant to pursue a Masters’ degree at Berklee College’s Global Jazz Institute. At the Global Jazz Institute he was under the eminent tutelage of several jazz masters including Danilo Perez, Kenny Werner, JoAnne Brackeen among many others. Kavyesh is known for his versatility and experience working in various different genres although primarily a jazz pianist. Kavyesh is a member of the jazz fusion quintet Mississippi, soon to be releasing an album in 2021. His many performances include national and local acts such as David Sanchez, Justin Robinson (Roy Hargrove), Roosevelt Collier, Jay Young and the Lyric Factory, Yolande Bruce, Debbie Duncan, Bruce Henry, Nooky Jones, the Kevin Washington Quintet, Jamecia Bennett, Desdamona, Toki Wright among several others. Kavyesh is also a passionate music educator, with experience as a private instructor and experience as an educator at the university level, music academies and public schools alike, and enjoys leading jazz workshops and teaching music classes for children and youth. He is currently at faculty at the University of St. Thomas, Minneapolis College and Walker | West Music Academy. His compositions and arrangements for various ensembles and configurations have been featured on radio, TV and collaborative exhibitions.
Mary Louise Knutson Minneapolis-based jazz pianist and composer, has been called “one of the most exciting and innovative artists to happen to jazz piano in quite some time.” Her warm, inviting tone, broad range of emotional expression, and distinctive compositions have brought her much recognition on the national music scene. Knutson has been performing and touring with her group, the Mary Louise Knutson Trio, since the early 90’s and from 2010-2018 she toured with former Tonight Show bandleader-trumpeter Doc Severinsen and his big band (featuring two-time Grammy Award winner tenor saxophonist Ernie Watts). Off-tour, she can be heard in the Twin Cities with her trio at clubs, festivals, concert halls, and private events; also with vocalists Connie Evingson, Debbie Duncan, or Patty Peterson; and with a variety of instrumental groups including the JazzMN Orchestra and the Minnesota Orchestra. She has performed with such jazz greats as Dizzy Gillespie, Bobby McFerrin, Dianne Reeves, Kevin Mahogany, Ernie Watts, Randy Brecker, Mike Stern, Nicholas Payton, Slide Hampton, and many more. Knutson’s debut jazz trio CD, Call Me When You Get There, charted in JazzWeek’s Top 50, earning her the award for Top New Jazz Instrumentalist and her latest jazz trio CD, In the Bubble, made JazzWeek’s Top 10 and stayed in the Top 50 for 19 consecutive weeks. In 2005, she was a Finalist in the Kennedy Center’s Women in Jazz International Pianist Competition and in 2006, Knutson was a Minnesota Music Awards nominee for both Jazz Artist of the Year and Pianist of the Year.
Bryan Nichols is a pianist, composer, and educator based in Minneapolis. Often found playing jazz and improvised music, but at home in a variety of musical worlds, he leads and composes for his own trio, quintet, and nonet in addition to performing, recording, and touring with forward-thinking artists like Nicole Mitchell, Ron Miles, and Olga Bell, and groups like the Gang Font, Dead Man Winter, and Halloween, Alaska. He has taught jazz piano at MacPhail Center for Music, University of Minnesota – Morris, and University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire, while presenting clinics and masterclasses at a variety of colleges and high schools around the midwest.
Bryan was awarded a 2010-11 McKnight Fellowship for Performing Musicians, a prestigious and competitive award given to Minnesota musicians. His work also earned him a 2004 residency from Betty Carter’s Jazz Ahead program at the Kennedy Center, given to outstanding, emerging jazz performer/composers, and a 2009 subito grant from the American Composers Forum. In May 2011 Bryan released his debut recording as a leader, Bright Places, containing nine original compositions for his quintet. The Star Tribune called the album “fresh and first-rate” and it landed on multiple best-of-year lists. In September 2011, he had the honor of performing as a soloist with the Minnesota Orchestra for the world premiere of a Stephen Paulus’ concerto for jazz quintet and orchestra.
Bryan has performed at most music venues in the Twin Cities and Chicago (where he lived from 2001-2005,) in addition to international festivals including Sons d’Hiver (Paris, France) and Kerava Jazz Festival (Kerava, Finland) and local and regional festivals including the Chicago Jazz Festival and the Minnesota Sur Seine Festival. He’s been a regular performer on series like SPCO’s Liquid Music, and Orchestra Hall’s Atrium Jazz Series. Bryan appears on recent recordings by Zacc Harris, MANCRUSH, Molly Dean, Dead Man Winter, Gang Font, Kelly Rossum, and many more. His most recent album, a solo piano endeavor entitled Looking North, was released in May 2016 on Shifting Paradigm Records.