Chase E.

Piano, Drums, Composition

Genres: Jazz, Pop, Contemporary Composition

Teaches in English

    

Chase E. is a composer, pianist and drummer based in Brooklyn. He holds a Master’s Degree in Contemporary Performance from the Berklee College of Music and a Bachelor’s Degree in Jazz Performance from Oberlin Conservatory. A 2022 MacDowell Fellow, Chase takes cues from media theorists, singer-songwriters, jazz composers, and poets to ask questions about how we relate to both ourselves and one another in our increasingly digitized, secularized cultural moment. 

 

In 2021, Chase received ASCAP’s Young Jazz Composers Award for his song “The World Is Now Your Own.” He has presented his work in clubs and festivals across the world. He has performed in Austria, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Greece, Jordan, Netherlands, Switzerland, and across the United States. 

 

Chase has shared the stage with Emma Frank, Morgan Guerin, and Allegra Krieger, and performs regularly with the Alex Hamburger Quartet and the ensemble Echoes. In 2020, he was awarded a grant by the Boulder County Arts Association to record his album Portrait Imperfect. Released on Biophilia Records in May 2022, it was hailed as “ambitious” and “artful” by Downbeat Magazine.

 

Chase has been teaching privately for over ten years, from beginning students to college-level musicians. His goal is to give each student a strong grasp of musical fundamentals – rhythm, reading, groove, harmony, melody, form – and to meet each student where they are in terms of their musical interests and sensibilities. Chase incorporates repertoire his students naturally listen to and like into their lessons, so that they have an organic entry point into the material. 

 

He incorporates listening, improvisation, and composition into his lessons, so that students can relate to music from as broad a perspective as possible. Positive affirmations and reassurance for students that there is no rush to learn is also important to Chase in his lessons. He also makes a point to share his own struggles with practicing and performing in hopes that his students will understand that the process of learning is so much richer than any end product to be delivered.