Background & Offerings

Joyce Kouffman has coached both classical and jazz ensembles for some 40 years. After a six year residency at Harvard University as a special teaching assistant (as well as offering her own classes as an adjunct faculty member) in chamber music alongside Professor Luise Vosgerchian (also noted as Yo-Yo Ma's major mentor), she was a recipient of a Harvard-Danforth Certificate for Excellence in undergraduate instruction. After moving to the San Francisco Bay Area, she taught at the Crowden School for musically gifted children for six years. In recent years, Joyce has taught privately in her studio, Point Reyes Music Center, where she offers lessons, classes, and 2 to 14 day immersions in several instruments, classical chamber music, rock, jazz, and world music for all ages and levels throughout the year. Joyce has performed on jazz drums with many of the world's top jazz masters and has traveled to West Africa to study traditional drumming with the master drummers of Senegal. Her early cello studies were with members of the Boston Symphony and Pops, followed by experiences of performing in college orchestras accompanying the young prodigy in her college class, Yo-Yo Ma. www.JoyceJazz.com, www.PointReyesMusicCenter.com.