Wind Instrument Instructors
GERRY CARTHY
Tenor Banjo, Guitar, Concertina, Fiddle, Tin Whistle, Flute, & Saxophone
Gerry comes from County Mayo on the West Coast of Ireland. He arrived in Santa Fe in 1986 and has been here since playing traditional Irish music on a variety of instruments including tin whistles, flute, saxophone, guitar, tenor banjo, tenor guitar, concertina and fiddle. He is an Artist in Residence with the New Mexico Folk Arts and is on the adjunct faculty of the Contemporary Music Program at the College of Santa Fe. He plays regularly in Santa Fe at various venues and teaches Irish music in the area. He also teaches early jazz on the tenor banjo and tenor guitar.
MICHAEL HANDLER
Harmonica
Michael started playing harmonica and guitar during the folk scene of the 1960's, and took formal guitar lessons (including one from Jerry Garcia) and lots of informal harp lessons. He studied with Mark Hummel in Oakland and attended Master Class Harmonica Workshops, Country Blues Camps, and Jazz Camps while living in California. He has been in bands since high school but really started singing and using the harp as the "front man" in college bands, developing his unique tone along the way. "Tone is everything" he will tell you, and his class shows where it comes from and how to use it. He was a jazz & blues DJ for over 25 years, and still does shifts on KSFR. He played for years with the Oakland-based Rhythm Doctor Band, and recorded with numerous artists. Since moving to Santa Fe has has played with Joe West, the HooDoos, South by Southwest, The Three Faces of Jazz, Lisa Carman, Felix y Los Gatos, The Albuquerque Blues Connection, and recorded with Bethlehem and Eggs and Bill Hearne. He has also appeared at the KTAOS Solar Festival, Santa Fe Blues Festival, and the Trinidadio Blues Festival. He has toured New Mexico twice as part of the Handler/McGee Project and is a regular up at the Canyon Road Blues Jam.
TREY KEEPIN
Saxophone & Clarinet
Trey is a seasoned professional saxophonist and clarinetist, for whom classical training on clarinet at the Vienna Academy of Music in Vienna, Austria, proved to be the beginning of a career in which Trey aproached entirely different realms in the blues and jazz idoms as a performer, recording artist, and teacher for more than the past thirty-five years. Since moving to Santa Fe in 1990, Mr. Keepin has been a faculty member at the College of Santa Fe and a widely respected, in-demand private instructor serving all the public and private schools in the Northern New Mexico region, as well as anyone wanting to learn, from a complete beginner to a performing musician.
Comfortable with teaching any age in any musical style from Mozart to Metal, he specializes in the private lesson format, customizing his teaching approach to the needs, desires, abilities, and learning style of each individual student, with emphasis from the first lesson on the joy of the musical experience, accompanied with the technique, theory, and musicianship needed to maximize that experience. As a result he has earned the reputation of being not only effective in producing results, but also fun and inspirational.