Faculty
Centrum Faculty
This skilled creative collective could wrap their arms around the globe. Much respect, big hugs.
Tia Fuller
Faculty
When Grammy-nominated Mack Avenue recording artist, composer, and bandleader Tia Fuller picks up her saxophone, something amazing happens. Blending technical brilliance, melodic creativity, and the performing precision drawn from both her academic and stage experience, Fuller is a force to be reckoned with in the worlds of jazz, pop, R&B, and more.
Tess Gallagher
Morning Workshop Faculty
Tess Gallagher, the author of eleven books of poetry, lives and writes in her hometown of Port Angeles, Washington, and in her cottage in Co. Sligo, Ireland. She is the only American to have been honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award for her poetry from the Foundation of Rome, which she received in 2023. Her most recent poetry collection Is, Is Not, published by Graywolf press, won the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award. …
Roberta Gamberini
Faculty
Vocal
Born and raised in Turin, Italy, to music loving parents (who had actually first met at a jazz concert), Roberta Gambarini grew up constantly listening to her father’s record collection.
Her first vocal inspiration was Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald , but she soon discovered Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday, and Carmen McRae, as well as gospel and blues artists such as Mahalia Jackson and Bessie Smith.…
Simin Ganatra
Violin, Pacifica Quartet
Simin Ganatra, a Grammy-award winning violinist, has won wide recognition for her performances throughout the United States and abroad. She has been described by critics as an “excellent and unique violinist” and heralded for “creating a miraculous sense of flow and otherworldly beauty.” She has performed in such prestigious venues as Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, the Corcoran Gallery, and Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall.…
Luna Garcia
Faculty
Luna Garcia started dancing Folklorico at age seven with the dance group Joyas Mestizas. In 2007, she started teaching with Joyas Mestizas, and she started dancing with Bailadores de Bronce. Dancing and teaching with both organizations, she has been able to promote and present the beauty of Folklorico throughout the Seattle area. She has taken classes and workshops with renowned Folklorico teachers such as Jose Tena from New Mexico State University and Samuel Cortez from Los Lupeños, San Jose.
Sara Gazarek
Faculty
Vocal
Born and raised in Seattle, WA, GRAMMY Award® winning jazz vocalist Sara Gazarek reigns as one of the most creative voices of her generation, and one “who may well turn out to be the next important jazz singer” (Los Angeles Times). Collaborating with jazz legends Fred Hersch, Billy Childs, Kurt Elling, and more, and with 6 critically-acclaimed albums under her belt at the age of 40, Gazarek often tours internationally as a soloist/band leader, and as a co-founder of the vocal collective, säje, whose debut album earned a GRAMMY Award® for Best Arrangement Instruments and Vocals.…
Jenny George
December 13, 2025 Reading
Jenny George is the author of After Image (Copper Canyon Press, 2024; PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry finalist) and The Dream of Reason (Copper Canyon Press, 2018). She is also a winner of the Discovery/Boston Review Poetry Prize and a recipient of fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Lannan Foundation, MacDowell, and Yaddo.…
Alice Gerrard
North Carolina
Simply put, Alice Gerrard is a talent of legendary status. In a career spanning some 50 years, she has known, learned from, and performed with many of the old-time and bluegrass greats and has in turn earned worldwide respect for her own important contributions to the music. Alice is particularly known for her groundbreaking collaboration with Appalachian singer Hazel Dickens during the 1960s and ’70s.…
Rhiannon Giddens & Friends
Rhiannon Giddens, fiddle, banjo and vocals
Justin Robinson, fiddle and vocals
Jason Sypher, bass
Justin Harrington, banjo
Rhiannon Giddens has made a singular, iconic career out of stretching her brand of folk music, with its miles-deep historical roots and contemporary sensibilities, into just about every field imaginable.…
Brian G. Gilmore
Afternoon Workshop Faculty
Native of Washington DC, Brian G. Gilmore is the author of four books of poetry—elvis presley is alive and well and living harlem; Jungle Nights and Soda Fountain Rags: Poem for Duke Ellington; We Didn’t Know Any Gangsters, an NAACP Image Award nominee and a Hurston-Wright Legacy Award nominee; and come see about me marvin, a Michigan Notable Book Award recipient.…