Faculty

Centrum Faculty

This skilled creative collective could wrap their arms around the globe. Much respect, big hugs.

Photo of Casey MacGill

Casey MacGill

Faculty

Casey MacGill plays music that swings. Nat “King” Cole Trio meets the Mills Brothers. Fats Waller meets Fats Domino. Slim Galliard meets Fred Astaire. It is American music of many decades and no decade in particular, all happening at the same time, woven into a seamless, beautiful whole. At the core of his sound are his band’s sometimes sweet, sometimes rough-hewn three-part harmony vocals.…

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Kelby MacNayr

Vocal Accompaniment

Drums

Drummer / composer / band-leader Kelby MacNayr performs groundbreaking original music, soulful swinging jazz, reaching contemporary music and traditional music from around the world. A dynamic and creative musician MacNayr performs in Canada and abroad with leading musicians from New York, Seattle, Portland, Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto & Europe. A faculty member of the renowned Jazz Port Townsend Festival under director John Clayton, staff at the Lionel Hampton International Jazz Festival, Kelby follows his passion to create and collaborate, teach and learn.

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Debra Magpie Earling

Morning Workshop Faculty

Debra Magpie Earling is the author of the novels Perma Red and The Lost Journals of Sacajewea and is currently working on a novel about witches. She is the recipient of the Montana Governor’s Arts Award and has received both a Guggenheim and NEA fellowship. Other awards include the American Book Award, the WILLA Award, the Mountains and Plains Bookseller Association Award, the Spur Award, Montana Book Award, and the Pacific Northwest Bookseller Award.…

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Dudu Maia

Bandolim

Dudu Maia brings a lifetime of research and study of Brazil’s greatest musical traditions to his work. A virtuoso of the bandolim (a Portuguese version of the mandolin), Dudu served for five years as the bandolim professor of Brazil’s most respected Choro school, the Escola Brasileira de Choro Raphael Rabello in Brasília. He is known for his soulful style, unique touch and his mastery of the 10-stringed bandolim, which has two more strings than the standard bandolim, expanding its musical range and harmonic possibilities.…

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Lightnin’ Malcolm

Guitar

Cutting edge Mississippi Bluesman Lightnin’ Malcolm, a charismatic and energetic guitarslinger with a deep soulful voice, has taken his irresistible dance grooves from Juke Joint teen years to World Stages with mainstream artists such as Robert Plant, Jimmy Buffett, Robert Cray, The Black Keys, Widespread Panic, Big Head Todd, North Mississippi Allstars, Lucero and Gary Clark Jr.…

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Ivan Malespin

Faculty

Trombone

Ivan Malespin is a Grammy winning trombonist and electric bassist residing in Los Angeles, California. He is a member of the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, and has worked with Herb Alpert, Kanye West, Damian Marley, and Philip Bailey, among others. Ivan also co-leads an artist project alongside his wife, Alexis Malespin. Together they compose, record, and perform original music under the moniker, Eumajia.

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Max Malone

A life in music is practically unavoidable when you’re born into a family of musicians. Max Malone was weaned on country music in the rural wilds of Ontario, through both the radio and his mother’s work as a background vocalist on the Tommy Hunter show. By the age of twelve he was performing as a singer and bassist with his family band on a weekly gig in Toronto’s Cabbagetown.…

Photo of Rachel Manke

Rachel Manke

Past Faculty

Rachel Manke has been playing the ukulele for over 20 years. It’s the passion that has fueled adventure and friendships in her life. She is a skilled player in a vaudeville vein who has taken flourish and technique from that stage into various genres.

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Rodrigo Mantovani

Upright Bass

Born and raised in Brazil, Rodrigo has always had a deep love for American blues and roots music from a very young age. Rodrigo has been a member of some of the first ground breaking Blues bands in Brazil and because of his deep knowledge regarding the Traditional Blues, expertise and feel for the Blues, he has also been a first call bassist for many of the premier American Blues acts touring and recording with heavy weights of the Blues scene

Photo of Rene Marie

Rene Marie

In a span of two decades, René Marie has cemented her reputation not only as a singer but also as a composer, arranger, actress and educator. Guided and tempered by powerful life lessons and rooted in jazz traditions laid down by icons of past generations, this two-time Grammy Nominee melds jazz with elements of spirituals, folk, R&B, classical and even country to create a captivating hybrid style.…