Paul Contos - Jazz/clarinet/saxophone teacher
With over thirty years in jazz performance, education, and faculty positions at UC Santa Cruz, CSUMB and MPC, Paul Contos’ talents and abilities encompass worldwide performance, recording, production, conducting, and mentorship.
Contos served as saxophone clinician with The Monterey Jazz Festival for 30 yrs., as Director of the Next Generation Jazz Orchestra & Monterey County All-Stars for 20 yrs., and as Education Director (2011-2019). He continues as Director of the SFJAZZ High School All-Stars Orchestra (2009-present), and is an annual guest artist in Japan, Brazil, and the United States annually. Lecturer in Saxophone at Univ. of California Santa Cruz (1996-present) Generated and taught the Recording and Music Technology component in the music major at CA State University Monterey Bay (1997-2009). Contos’ pedagogical statement can be encapsulated thus: He is constantly working to provide inspiration and motivation to the world’s young generation of new jazz artists for the continuation, persistence, and relentless development and evolution of the jazz language.
Under Contos’ direction, many of the ensembles he has conducted have been awarded first place at competitions and festivals throughout the U.S. In 2017, Contos was awarded Downbeat Magazine’s national Jazz Education Achievement Award for Jazz Educator, and in 2015 was awarded the Champion of the Arts: Educator Award by the Monterey Arts Council.