This class is an introduction to “how jazz works” for anyone who wants to understand the history of the music, learn how musicians improvise together, and go deeper as a jazz listener and audience member. Maybe you have a loved one who is hooked on this music, or you’ve been taken to a jazz concert but felt that there was some secret code you needed to crack to get the most out of the experience.

Through guided listening, musical demonstrations, and interactive discussions, this highly accessible class takes you through the blues, song forms based on the Great American Songbook, the roles of instruments in a jazz ensemble, and the language of jazz improvisation, with examples drawn from piano trios to big bands. No musical experience necessary!

Registration

Drop in or register for the full 8-week series.

Saturdays 2–3:30 pm
10/3–11/21
Erika Oba, $140 series or $20/session
(hybrid: in-person and online)

About Erika Oba

Erika Oba is a composer, pianist/flutist, and educator based in the San Francisco Bay Area. As a composer, she has written works for jazz ensembles, chamber groups, dance, and theater, and has been commissioned by groups including the Del Sol String Quartet, Fresno Philharmonic, Shotgun Players, and Sharp and Fine.

She is active as a performer on both piano and flute and performs with her own groups, the Erika Oba Trio, Rice Kings, and The Sl(e)ight Ensemble. She has performed in a wide variety of ensembles with musicians including Meredith Monk, Peter Apfelbaum, Hitomi Oba, Lisa Mezzacappa, Jean Fineberg, Jon Jang, and Francis Wong.

In addition to maintaining a private teaching studio, she is a private jazz piano instructor for UC Berkeley’s Music Department and a resident music director with Berkeley Playhouse’s Youth Conservatory Program.

In 2018, Oba was a composer fellow with the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music and worked with the Del Sol String Quartet. She was a 2023–24 fellow in the inaugural cohort of the Asian Improv Arts Fellowship program.

As an artist, she is interested in exploring cultural practice in diaspora, performance as ritual, and music as a vehicle for exploring relationships to communities, histories, and the biosphere. She received her BM in Jazz Piano Performance from Oberlin Conservatory and her MA in Music Composition from Mills College.