Ron Wilkins, Peck Allmond, Vicki Burns, Thana Alexa

Teaches at New York Jazz Academy

Ron Wilkins 
New York City based musician Ron Wilkins has been performing on tenor and bass trombones, euphonium, tuba, bass trumpet and vocals for over forty years. He has performed at the highest levels touring around the world with his own groups as well as premiere artists. 

Ron’s uncanny musicianship has led him to perform in many diverse musical genres. He has performed with artists such as Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Rosemary Clooney, Lena Horne, Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, Dizzy Gilespie, The Temptations, Johnny Mathis, Jimmy Heath, Jon Faddis, Eddie Daniels, Randy Brecker, Wycliffe Gordon, and groups such as The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, Arturo O’ Farrill and his Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra, The Dizzy Gillespie All-Star Big Band and Small Group, Chris Potter Big Band, Ed Palermo Big Band, Jimmy Heath Big Band, Affinity Brass Quintet, Uptown Brass Quintet, Livio Almeida Brazilian Dectet, Memo Acevedo’s Building Bridges Band, San Antonio Brass, Capitol of Texas Brass Quintet, San Antonio Symphony and Festival Orchestra, Austin Symphony and Austin Pops, Mid-Texas Symphony, Victoria Symphony, Temple Symphony, and the Flint Symphony where he was twice guest artist for their summer pops concert series. 

Peck Allmond 
Peck Allmond is a multi-instrumentalist and composer based in Brooklyn, NY. His primary instruments are trumpet, flute, and tenor sax; and he doubles fluently on a long list of other brass and woodwinds including clarinet, bass clarinet, alto flute, piccolo, mellophone, peckhorn, euphonium, sousaphone, and soprano, alto, and baritone saxophones. He also plays the kalimba, a beautiful harplike thumb-piano related to the mbira, to which he brings an unusual degree of virtuosity. Peck has performed and/or recorded with Me’Shell NdegeOcello’s Spirit Music Sextet, Oliver Lake, Peter Apfelbaum, Don Cherry, Julius Hemphill, John Hicks, Rickie Lee Jones, Rufus Wainwright, Ray Lamontagne, Sean Lennon, Will Lee, Randy Newman, Lenny Kravitz, and James Brown; and leads his own units, the Peck Allmond Group and Kalimba Kollective. His compositions were performed by the late jazz legend Jackie McLean in McLean’s quintet. Peck studied classical and jazz trumpet at New England Conservatory of Music with Robert Nagel and John McNeil from 1980-82, and earned his B.A. in Music from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1986. He has also studied trumpet and saxophone at intensive jazz workshops in Banff, Alberta, Canada; Naropa Institute, Boulder CO; and Creative Music Studios, Woodstock, NY; with Dave Liebman, Steve Coleman, Kenny Wheeler, Dave Holland, Cecil Taylor, Charlie Haden, and the Art Ensemble of Chicago. He has taught privately, in schools, and at numerous jazz camps for close to three decades. Since 2005, Peck has been the trumpet clinician for the Monterey Jazz Festival’s “Traveling Clinician” program.  

Vicki Burns 
Vocalist Vicki Burns is a jazz singer who has been delighting audiences for years. A vocalist with a sure sense of rhythm and tone, she infuses each song with heartfelt expression, digging into the lyrics and melody for their richest interpretation. The great jazz drummer, Max Roach once described Vicki’s singing as “…a goldmine…!” Jazz critic Scott Yanow says, “Vicki Burns has a limitless future. Her very attractive voice, versatile style and infectious delivery combine to give her her own memorable sound.” John Gilbert of ejazz.com says: ”Vicki Burns does indeed ‘burn’ on this recording. The stars were aligned just right when she was blessed with a singing voice that was made for the jazz idiom.” Active in the New York City jazz scene, Vicki has recently performed for enthusiastic audiences at Birdland, The Iridium, Zinc Bar, North Square and the Metropolitan Room, among other venues.

Vicki has been teaching children and adults to sing in both private lessons and classes in school settings since 1984. Previously to teaching with New York Jazz Academy, Vicki enjoyed teaching at Blue Bear School of Music in San Francisco, which features American styles of music such as rock, blues and jazz, from 2003-2008. Vicki teaches a vocal technique which is based on the Classical technique of Bel Canto which she has adapted to popular styles and all ages, ranging from 3-90!

Thana Alexa
Alexa is an active member of Antonio Sanchez’ touring ensemble Migration (Grammy winner for the Birdman film score as well as Pat Metheny’s drummer of 16 years) and has recorded two critically acclaimed albums with the group, New Life and The Meridian Suite, (Seamus Blake, John Escreet, Matt Brewer). Alexa also appears on three of guitarist Gene Ess’s albums. The first two records (Fractal Attraction and Eternal Monomyth) – for which Alexa contributed vocals, compositions and lyrics – won the SESAC Jazz Award in 2015 and 2016. The group’s third album Absurdist Theater (Manuel Valera, Yasushi Nakamura, Clarence Penn) – for which Alexa contributed lyrics – was released in September of 2016.