Sing Play Learn with MacPhail® Presents: a Sing Along with the MacPhail Jazz Combo
Performers
Amanda Breininger has been teaching at MacPhail since 2008. Teaching students ages 0 to 8, she brings her expertise to the Sing Play Learn with MacPhail® and Online School Partnership programs. Amanda believes in teaching to all abilities, and that music involves the whole brain: each music class is also a math class, gymnastics class, public speech class, ethics class, social skills class, literacy class, visual art class and critical thinking class!
Amanda is immersed in community music making outside of MacPhail as well. Whether it’s performing at open mic nights and coffee shops, community theater, working as a musician in her church community, or impromptu jam sessions with friends, music is a part of her daily life.
She holds a Bachelors of Music from Augsburg College.
Terrell Woods / Carnage The Executioner has spent almost 30 years making music, motivational speaking, performing live as a one-man band, touring the world, and working with youth and adults from various socio-economic backgrounds. He possesses a knack for producing intense, thought-provoking music and establishing strong, healthy relationships. 16 years of teaching human beatboxing/vocal percussion, songwriting, and composing short stage plays have helped Terrell build an impressive artist resume that extends all the way to Europe (5 tours between 2011 and 2013) and Asia (toured in 2018). Terrell stands firm in his support and practice of positive self-expression and nurturing leadership skills building. He also speaks in favor of social justice, human rights, and advocacy for the lives and well-being of animals. Terrell encourages mentees to seek personal and artistic growth through education and music – just as he has done for himself. He emits heart-warming, down-to-earth energy when speaking on his experiences around living in poverty and surviving all forms of abuse – as well as growing up in the foster care system as a youth, in welcoming settings. Terrell’s professional services are highly-respected wherever they are implemented. MacPhail Center For Music, COMPAS, and SteppingStone Theatre employee contract and consistently contract home for instruction. Even though he plays over 100 live shows a year, Terrell still finds time to teach private lessons, book his own national tours, and be a father.
Paul Babcock has over 25 years experience teaching percussion/drum set. He enjoys working with students of all backgrounds to discover their passions for music and percussion to see how far they can go on this exciting journey.
Paul developed the MacPhail percussion ensemble Rimshots!, who have performed across the United States and abroad.
He holds a Bachelor’s of Arts in Music Performance at Monmouth College (Illinois), and a Master’s in Music Performance from University of Minnesota.
Austin Wahl is an internationally acclaimed performer and teacher with nearly thirty competition prizes, including ten first-place finishes. He embraces traditional and unusual repertoire in performance and competition, ranging from well-known works of Bach, Sor, and Tarrega, to lesser-known masterpieces by composers including Gary Ryan, and Hans Werner Henze. Wahl premiered his groundbreaking solo transcription of Aaron Copland’s Rodeo suite (originally for orchestra) in February 2021. He is currently composing a solo guitar suite based on notable international events of the Cold War.
Wahl is a dedicated teacher across multiple genres. He strongly believes in the power of the guitar to transcend the style in which it is played, and to spark student interest in crossing between genres. Prior to MacPhail, he taught at the Kanack School of Musical Artistry in Rochester, NY. His students have ranged in age from under five to over seventy, and represent diverse musical and national backgrounds.
Tommy Boynton is a singer, composer, and multi-instrumentalist, residing in St Paul, MN. Since graduating from the New England Conservatory of Music in 2012, Tommy has been an active collaborator in the Midwest music scene, and an international touring musician with The Four Freshmen, The Mimzees (original song cycles by Tommy), The River Monks, Extravision, Field Division, and much more. He recently stepped away from his teaching position at the School for Music Vocations at Southwestern Community College in Creston, IA, to step back into his community and touring.
In an eagerness to utilize the times we live in, he finds the recording arts to be an integral part of growth, documentation, and experimentation, that has the potential to lead to self-discovery, as well as an expansive awareness of the artist within. Through this process he has been able to craft his relationship with his voice, composing, arranging, piano, guitar, bass, drums, synthesizers, and more to explore the endless palettes that documentation can provide. As an artist and educator, he is grateful for the paths that have allowed him to stay actively creative and exploring while seeking to welcome all in experiencing and enjoying music free of judgment and shame.
Greg Keel has 32 plus years of experience, teaching saxophone, clarinet, and jazz flute to students of all ages as well as performing with artists such as Aretha Franklin, The O’Jays, Natalie Cole, Johnny Mathis, Fifth Dimension, Frankie Valli, Lou Rawls, Bobby Vinton, and The Temptations. He enjoys instructing students in all styles of music, but clearly has a passion for jazz. Greg’s high school and college students have received recognition from Down Beat Magazine’s yearly Student Jazz Awards and are frequently selected as members of the Minnesota All-State Jazz Ensembles and the Dakota Jazz Ensemble.
Greg is an artist/clinician for Selmer Saxophones and was a two-term vice-president of the Minnesota chapter of the International Association for Jazz Education and the jazz program director and a member of the saxophone faculty at the annual Shell Lake Arts Center Summer Jazz Camps. He co-hosts the annual Twin Cities Saxophone Day sponsored by MacPhail and McNally Smith College, which is one of the largest woodwind events in the country.