Brass & Winds Lessons

PhD, MA (English & American Literature) Brandeis University; BA University of Rochester.  Marcia Anderson has studied recorder with Dan Stillman and John Tyson.  She has attended many workshops in early music, and is an avid participant in the annual Amherst Early Music Festival.  As a member of the Capriol Consort, Amici Musicae, Ars et Amici, Joyful Noyse, and the Steve Tapper/Marcia Anderson Duo, Marcia has performed at many venues including Plimoth Plantation, Hammond Castle, King Richard’s Faire, the North Easton Arts Fair, and Twelfth Night celebrations.  The Tapper/Anderson Duo performs annually at the Orff-Schulwerk Workshop at Bridgewater State College.  In addition to playing in many community settings here in New England, she has toured Italy, performing in Rome, Florence, Padua, Bolzano, and Venice.

Marcia has been on the faculty of the Joy of Music Program since 2003, has also taught at New England Conservatory’s Project Step and Worcester Hills Recorder Society, and is coach of the Bridgewater Recorder Ensemble and the Bayview Recorder Consort.  She also enjoys teaching English Country Dancing and Renaissance Court Dance.  As a poet, she wrote the lyrics for Will Ayton’s Cantata, “Mary Danced,” published in 2001.  Marcia is a retired Professor of English at Bridgewater State College.

Madeline Browning received a Bachelor of Music degree with a concentration in Music Therapy from the University of the Pacific in Stockton CA.  She earned her teacher certification in Elementary Education (K-8) and Music Education (K-12) from St. Mary’s College in Moraga CA.  Madeline further developed her teaching skills at UMass Lowell, where she received Orff Shulwerk Certification for Levels I, II, and III.  From 1979-1986 she taught at the Community Music Center of Boston, in the Shrewsbury and Harvard Public Schools and played flute and piccolo in the Central Mass Symphony Orcestra.  Madeline was Director of the First Unitarian Church (Worcester) Children’s Choir from 1995 to 2001 and is currently flute accompanist for the church’s Senior Choir.  She has been teacher and board member of the Worcester Hills Recorder Society since 1989 and is a founding member of FloraMusica, a recorder ensemble that performs in the Worcester area.

In the fall of 1988, Wendy Ardizzone hired Madeline to teach recorder at the Joy of Music Program, then a fledgling two-year-old program of Music & Movement classes for young children taught by Wendy.

James Mercier is a Bachelor of Music candidate at Clark University, where he transferred from the Longy School of Music. At Longy, he was a Saxophone Performance major studying with Kenneth Radnofsky and a member of the Longy Saxophone Quartet.  Prior to moving to Massachusetts, James was an active performer and teacher in Vermont, New Hampshire and Canada.  He was a member of the International Wind Orchestra and Precisely Vague in Newport VT, and Principal Clarinetist for the Vermont Theatre Company in Burlington and Harmonie de Coaticook in Quebec.   In addition to teaching privately from his home in New Hampshire, he was an assistant music teacher at Colebrook Elementary and Junior High Schools.  James has been Music Advisor for Becker College since 2010 and has been on the Joy of Music faculty since 2009. 

Jerry Sabatini received his Bachelor of Science degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1978, where he studied music and performed in small and large jazz ensembles while majoring in electrical engineering.  After moving to Massachusetts, he began studying jazz improvisation and composition with tenor saxophonist Jerry Bergonzi and jazz theory and history with tenor saxophonist Sam Falzone (Don Ellis Orchestra) and drummer Louie Marino (Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell).  In May 2009 Jerry received a Master of Music degree in Contemporary Improvisation from the New England Conservatory of Music.  His teachers at NEC included Ran Blake, Anthony Coleman, Frank Carlberg and Charles Schlueter.

In 1995, Jerry founded The Sonic Explorers, a jazz ensemble which features his compositions, arrangements and trumpet work.  The group has recorded four CDs to date.  Among the many other bands and individuals Jerry has performed with throughout New England are Elliot Sharpe, Fred Frith, Anthony Coleman, Oliver Lake, the Makanda Project, Roving Soul and the Mark Marquis Group.  He has recorded with many musicians in a wide variety of musical styles.  Jerry joined the Joy of Music faculty in 1993 and also teaches at his home studio in Leominster.