Thank you to Luke Folger for sharing his beautiful electronic music with our students on Wednesday. WHEELS music students are feeling inspired to compose and improvise their own music!

Yesterday WHEELS music students were fortunate enough to have their first lessons of the 2013-2014 school year with teachers from Manhattan School of Music (MSM)! Thank you to the MSM Outreach Program for making these lessons possible.

Today MSM and the D'Addario Foundation generously arranged to have two of the world's greatest young guitarists perform at WHEELS. WHEELS students experienced amazing performances by Celil Refik Kaya and Junhong Kuang, followed by interesting Q&A sessions with the artists. Thank you to the performers and everyone involved for providing this opportunity for WHEELS students!

It has been a busy week for WHEELS music students. The WHEELS Performance Ensemble performed at the WHEELS High School National Honor Society induction ceremony. Congratulations to the inductees and the performers!

Yesterday one of our talented drummers made a professional quality studio recording to submit to colleges, music conservatories, and scholarship programs. This amazing opportunity was made possible by teachers Brian Letiecq and Gabe Cummins, who generously opened the doors of their recording studio at The Beacon School and offered us their services. Thank you to them and their students for all their help! And thank you to pianist Christian Nourijanian, drummer Dustin Kaufman, saxophonist Mike McGarril, and bassist Desmond White for coaching and recording with our student.

WHEELS band students had a strong start to the 2013-2014 school year. We have more students than ever before joining our three bands!

Check out this new PBS documentary about WHEELS, featuring a performance by one of our bands at our 2013 high school graduation.

Dr. T. and Mr. Johnson would like to thank all the incredible musicians they've had the opportunity to take lessons with during just this past week: drummers Dustin Kaufman and Eric Doob, percussionist Paulo Stagnaro, bassist Josh Marcum, singer/guitarist Gabe Cummins, and pianist Alex Brown. This week they studied rudiments, warm-ups and Latin and jazz vocabulary for soloing and accompanying on various instruments. Special thanks to Fund for Teachers for supporting Dr. T. and Mr. Johnson's studies of Latin music!

Several WHEELS music students have spent the summer studying and networking with some of the best musicians in NYC and the world!

WHEELS music students with percussionist and singer Pedrito Martinez

WHEELS music students with bassists Alvaro Benavides and Mark Brown

As part of their Fund for Teachers fellowship Dr. T. and Mr. Johnson continue to take private lessons with pianist Alex Brown, bassist Josh Marcum, percussionist Paulo Stagnaro, and drummer Eric Doob. They have also been fortunate enough to see all of these amazing musicians perform at venues throughout NYC. In just the past week Dr. T. and Mr. Johnson have seen performances by these musicians as well as singer Christelle Durandy, bassist Edward Perez, guitarist Sergio Valdeos, guitarist Eric Kurimski, pianist Luiz Simas, and the Pedrito Martinez Group. The knowledge and skills that Dr. T. and Mr. Johnson are learning will all be shared with WHEELS music students when they study Latin music in band classes and general music classes.