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.
2025 Clinicians
William Duncan was born in Motown, was once a child prodigy and Minister of Music. Mr. Duncan grew up surrounded by music, working with some of the greatest gospel artists of multiple generations (like the late Dr. Mattie Moss-Clark and her daughters The Clark Sisters, Byron Cage, Fred Hammond, J. Moss, the Winans, the late Donald Valis and Thomas Whitfield to name a few). Most recently Mr. Duncan was commissioned to compose an original work for, “Art in This Present Moment,” an initiative by the Saint Paul and Minnesota Foundation where he worked with local artists for the piece.
Currently a graduate student at the Juilliard School in New York City, pianist and composer Will Kjeer draws from a wide array of genres to create lyrical, forward thinking chamber music. Will seeks to tell stories through his craft, inspired by classical song forms and folklore as well as notes of rock and classic pop. He has performed across America at venues including the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Ravinia’s Bennett Gordon Hall in Chicago, and Dizzy’s at Lincoln Center in New York City. He has been noted and awarded as an exceptional composer and arranger, with works spanning modern chamber jazz to film music.Will’s style and intentionality caught the ear of drumming pioneer Dave King (The Bad Plus) early on, leading to King producing and performing on Will’s debut album, recorded during the pandemic and due for label release in 2024. In addition to his passions for composing and bandleading, Will has enjoyed active sideman & accompanist careers in Los Angeles, New York, and his hometown, Saint Paul MN.
Will is an alum of Betty Carter’s Jazz Ahead and of the Steans Music Institute; the 2018 winner of the Angel City Jazz Festival Young Artist Competition, a 2019 Yamaha Young Performing Artist, a Jazz Fest Bonn International JazzBeet Competition finalist, a 2022 Ravinia Bridges Composition Competition Winner, and is proud to have performed for Herbie Hancock as one of five piano finalists for admission to the Thelonious Monk Institute. He has performed with many world-class performers including Dave King, Jerry Bergonzi, Adam Nussbaum, Sinne Eeg, Karrin Allyson, Larry Long, JT Bates, and Billy Peterson.
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.