The Song School
The Song School
The Song School
2024 Songwriting Instructors
Michaela Anne
In addition to recording and performing, she has been a vocal and songwriting coach privately as well as in classroom, camp and workshop settings for over 10 years after receiving her BFA in Jazz Vocal Performance from the New School in New York City. She has three Voice and Songwriting instructional books published by Mel Bay.
Mary Gauthier
Mary Gauthier is a Grammy nominated songwriter who has released eleven studio records. She is also a published author. Her book Saved by a Song (St Martin’s Press) explores the healing power of songwriting, and has been praised by Rolling Stone Magazine as “A must-read book that is just right for the times we live in.” The Associated Press named Mary Gauthier as one of the best songwriters of her generation. Her newest release, Dark Enough to See the Stars, was released in 2022. Her 2019 release, Rifles & Rosary Beads (a collection of songs co-written with wounded veterans), was nominated at the 61st GRAMMY Awards (2019) for Best Folk Album.
The record was also nominated for Album of the Year by the Americana Music Association and named Album of the Year by Folk Alliance International. That same year, Mary was named International Artist of the Year by The UK Americana Music Association. Her songs have been recorded by dozens of artists, including Jimmy Buffett, Boy George, Blake Shelton, Tim McGraw, Bettye Lavette, Mike Farris, Kathy Mattea, Bobby Bare, Amy Helm, Candi Staton and many others. Her songs have been featured in film and television, including Paramount’s Yellowstone, and ABC’s Nashville.
Bonnie Hayes
Bonnie Hayes is a songwriter, recording artist, musician and record producer. She has released 5 records as an artist, including a stint at Chrysalis Columbia and the early Slash/Warner’s record Good Clean Fun. Her songs have been recorded by Bonnie Raitt, Robert Cray, Bette Midler, Booker T & the MG’s, Adam Ant, David Crosby, Huey Lewis & the News and many others. Hayes also toured as a keyboardist/vocalist with Billy Idol and Belinda Carlisle world tours and has shared the stage with Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Bonnie Raitt, Tower of Power, Don Was and countless others.
An experienced and adept producer and arranger, she has recorded her own demos as well as producing records for many indie artists and songwriters. Her most recent gig as chair of the songwriting department at the Berklee College of Music ended this year; she currently is building a youth songwriting program at the Blue Bear School in San Francisco, serving on several non-profit boards, and enjoying the California sunshine.
Phoebe Hunt
On the heels of 2021’s acclaimed “Shanti’s Shadow”, Phoebe Hunt is excited to release “Nothing Else Matters” in July of 2023 (Thirty Tigers). The album of solo fiddle and voice marks a departure for Hunt, whose previous projects have showcased her skill as a bandleader and collaborator. Yet it is also a joyful return to her foundations.
When the pandemic changed the world, Hunt, like all touring artists, was taken off the road. Feeling for the community of artists she had met over 15 years of touring, she realized that it would be beneficial for professional artists and music dabblers alike to experience community through dedication to the study of music. She started a movement for people to “point their minds to practicing” during the lockdown. The result was 27 online courses serving over 200 students and offered 33 musicians gigs in 18 months.
She has also developed a program to help parents to Plant The Seeds of Music in their homes and communities called ukulele sprouts (ukulelesprouts.com).
Peter Mulvey
Peter Mulvey has been a songwriter, road-dog, raconteur, and almost-poet since before he can remember. In 1989 he spent a year in Ireland, busking on the streets of Dublin and hitchhiking to whatever gigs he could find. Back stateside, he spent a couple years gigging through the bars of his native Midwest before taking off for Boston, where he returned to subway busking and coffeehouses. Small shows led to larger shows, which eventually led to regional and then national touring. The wheels have not stopped since.
Twenty albums, one illustrated book, thousands of live performances, a TEDx talk, a decades-long association with the National Youth Science Camp, opening tours and gigs for luminaries such as Ani DiFranco, Greg Brown, Emmylou Harris and Chuck Prophet, appearances on NPR, an annual autumn tour by bicycle, emceeing festivals, hosting his own Lamplighter Sessions for years in Boston and in Wisconsin… he has built his life’s work on collaboration, on an instinct for the eclectic and the vital.
Pat Pattison
Pat Pattison is an author, clinician and Berklee Professor of Lyric Writing and Poetry whose students have composed for major artists and written number one songs. At Berklee, he developed the curriculum for the only songwriting major in the country. In addition to his four books, Songwriting Without Boundaries, Writing Better Lyrics, The Essential Guide to Lyric Form and Structure, and The Essential Guide to Rhyming, Pat has developed three online lyric writing courses, one on poetry, and one on creative writing available through Berkleemusic.com.
He has filmed a series of lectures and masterclasses, available through Songwork.com and has written over 50 articles for various magazines and blogs. Pat continues to present songwriting clinics across the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK. Several of his students have won Grammys, including John Mayer and Gillian Welch.
Paul Reisler
Paul Reisler is a composer, songwriter, recording artists, performer and teacher. He is the founder and artistic director of Kid Pan Alley, co-founder of Trapezoid, as well as his current bands, Paul Reisler & A Thousand Questions featuring Howard Levy, and Three Good Reasons. Over his almost 50-year career, he has performed in over 3,000 concerts, recorded close to three-dozen albums, co-written Aesop’s Fables for Orchestra and Narrator, music for theatre, dance and film, as well as the script and songs for two musicals—Bouncin’ and The Talented Clementine.
He’s written more songs than the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, and Stephen Foster combined—somewhere north of 3,500 compositions thanks in no small part to his army of 80,000 kid co-writers as well as his many adult collaborators. Artists including Sissy Spacek, Raul Malo, Darrell Scott, Cracker, Corey Harris, Jesse Winchester and many others have recorded his songs.
At this stage of his life, he’s committed to inspiring the creativity of others through his songwriting workshops as well as through Kid Pan Alley. A few of the places he’s taught include Rocky Mountain Song School (26 years), Utah Song School, New Song Academy, Swannanoa Gathering, Augusta Workshop, Hollyhock, Kerrville, NSAI, Berklee College of Music, and he will be co-founding a new annual Songschool in Italy in October.
Steve Seskin
Steve Seskin is a successful songwriter who has written seven number one songs, including Grammy-nominated “Grown Men Don’t Cry,” recorded by Tim McGraw, and “Don’t Laugh at Me,” winner of NSAI Song of the Year and Music Row Magazine Song of the Year in 1999 as recorded by Mark Wills. His other #1 hits are “No Doubt About It” and “For a Change,” both recorded by Neal McCoy, “No Man’s Land” and “If You’ve Got Love,” both recorded by John Michael Montgomery, and “Daddy’s Money,” recorded by Ricochet.
Other chart toppers include “I Think About You,” recorded by Collin Raye, and “All I Need To Know,” recorded by Kenny Chesney. The video for Raye’s “I Think About You” single was named the Academy of Country Music’s Video of the Year in 1997, and the song and video were also given an award by the Tennessee Task Force Against Domestic Violence.
In 2014, 2018 and 2020, Steve was nominated to the NSAI Hall of Fame. Recent recordings of his songs include “Pictures,” by John Michael Montgomery, “We Shook Hands,” by Tebey, and “I’ll Always Be There For You,” by Brian McComas, “This Too Shall Pass,” by Sinclair and “Standing Still”, “Proof”, “Lift You Up” and “Electricity” by Seth Glier.
While Steve is best known for writing hits, he is also a successful performer and recording artist. His 20th album, Some Sunsets, released in 2014, is filled with inspiring, hopeful songs, and features Steve and the talented Julia Sinclair. “Don’t Laugh at Me” was recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary and became the impetus for the Operation Respect/Don’t Laugh at Me project, a curriculum designed to teach tolerance in schools. This program has already been implemented in more than 20,000 schools across the country. Steve now enjoys performing at school assemblies in support of this program. The song is now available as a children’s book, Don’t Laugh At Me, which was featured on PBS’s Reading Rainbow in September 2002.
And many more to be announced, so check back again soon!