EIU Department of Music

EMC Instrumental Jazz Camp

The EMC Instrumental Jazz Camp is open to students completing the 6th through 12th grades. This camp is designed to meet the needs of those students who are interested in jazz at all levels, providing an instructional and educational experience for both beginners and more advanced students. Students will have an opportunity to study jazz with EIU’s outstanding jazz faculty and other fine musicians from around the country.  Students participate in the following: 

• Big Bands
• Jazz Theory
• Improvisation
• Master classes
• Jazz Seminar
• Jazz Combos (for the more advanced students)

Participants will also have an opportunity to perform for family and friends at a final concert on Saturday, the last day of camp. 

Thank you to Chicago Jazz Magazine for listing our camp in their 2023 summer camp listing!

About the Instrumental Jazz Camp Faculty

Dr. Sam Fagaly, EMC Jazz Coordinator, is the Director of Jazz Studies, conductor of the award winning EIU Jazz Ensemble, and professor of applied saxophone atEastern Illinois University. He has extensive teaching and performing experience.

He received his Bachelor of Music from the University of Florida, his Masters of Music from Louisiana State University, and his Doctor of Arts from the University of Northern Colorado.

(read Dr. Fagaly's full biography here)

Percussionist Jamie V. Ryan thrives on playing and teaching many types of music. In 1999, Jamie co-founded the Africa->West Percussion Trio, which plays its own music influenced by the African Diaspora and the Western tradition, as well as standard repertoire for chamber percussion. Jamie is also in demand as a drum set artist across the Midwest. He he has played with Tim Whalen’s Trio, Nonet, and Tribute to Art Blakey bands, avant-metal group Freighter (www.freighterband.com), and numerous other groups in the jazz, rock, and Latin music genres. He toured Europe and the United States with the Leo Sidran band, and recorded for the GoJazz and Stellar Records labels. He has taught at Mansfield University, the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, and Lawrence University. Jamie received his B.M. from Lawrence University (magna cum laude), and did his graduate work at the University of Wisconsin.

(Read the rest of Mr. Ryan's biography here)

Paul Johnston has enjoyed teaching at Eastern since 2004.  He directs the Jazz Lab Band, coordinates the combo program, and teaches courses in jazz piano, improvisation, and arranging.  Paul remains very active as a teacher, performer, and composer.  He is at home in a wide variety of musical styles and has performed with artists including Clark Terry, Benny Golson, Nancy Wilson, Monica Mancini, and Bernadette Peters. A native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he studied at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and at Indiana University, where he earned a Master's Degree in jazz studies, a Performer Diploma in piano, and a Performer's Certificate. Soloists, chamber groups, and jazz ensembles from across the country have performed his compositions and arrangements.  His composition Mountain Sketches for Horn and Piano won the 2014 International Horn Society Composition Competition, and DuoXXI included his work for violin, cello, and piano on their recent Albany Records compact disc, Metal Cicadas.  Alfred Music has also published several collections of his solo piano arrangements in their Jazz Performer series.  Paul serves on the summer faculty at the Interlochen Center for the Arts and teaches at Eastern's Summer Music Camp.  He is an alumnus of Ravinia's Steans Music Institute and the Henry Mancini Institute.