Adrian Herrera-Escobar, DMA, is an assistant professor of music at Colorado Mesa University. During more than 30 years of his career, he had the opportunity to be associated with different jazz and contemporary music programs at universities in Colombia. His duties have included teaching classes such as Jazz and Contemporary Improvisation, small combos, and big band ensembles, Jazz and Popular keyboard, Jazz History, Western Music Theory, Jazz Theory, and Jazz Piano. He has extensive experience working with music staff departments on coordination and assessment of jazz and contemporary music programs.
In the field of performance, he has played with numerous Colombian and international artists such as Ronald Carter, Antonio Hart, Mark Gross, David Bennet, Joel Spencer, Chip Mc Neill, Larry Gray, Tito Carrillo, Jim Pisano, Bobbie Shew, Dave Pietro, among others. He has played at many jazz festivals in Colombia and the United States, including concerts at the Teatro Jorge Eliecer Gaitán in the framework of the Jazz al Parque 2007, 2009 and 2013 festival, Sevilla 2008, Julio Mario Santo Domingo Theater 2011, Fernando Sor School 2011, 2012 and 2013, and Adrian Herrera Quintet live in Chicago (2016). These concerts have been alternating with numerous recording sessions and Jam sessions in the United States and Colombia. He was recently chosen as the winner of the international festival of jazz Voces de Cartagena in its 2019 version in the category of the best group (Adrian Herrera Jazz Quintet) and best Arrangement (El Mejoral).
Herrera-Escobar believes teaching is one of the most amazing forms of art which involve not only the simple process of passing information to your students but also the ability to recognized valuable experiences that can engage you in your own exercise of learning. He recognizes himself as a student, encourages his students to understand and respect for the vast amount of knowledge created by humanity.
Teaching different jazz courses has been an amazing experience and an extraordinary opportunity to put practice his philosophy. He believes that one of the keys to learning jazz vocabulary is motivation. For that purpose, he uses different tools learned in academics environment and personal experiences and brings them to the class for explaining music tools such as communication, subdivision, jazz improvisation and jazz theory.
His students develop a critical mind that allows them to express their point of view and in consequence generate an interesting set of ideas that they can share with their peers. Recognizing differences is also an important part of his philosophy because it allows him to understand different rhythm and process of learning among his students and encourage him to do research about methodologies and teaching styles.
His cultural background in combination with my communicative teaching language approach, sense of humor, use of technologies, and teaching learning access allows students to acquire music skills that permit them to develop
a critical mind. That increases their abilities to solve problems in the jazz language among the vast spectrum of issues related to simple music development.
Adrian Herrera-Escobar's Curriculum Vitae