Amped Music School

Amped Music School offers one on one music lessons on many instruments. Guitar, piano, drums, voice, bass, flute, saxophone, clarinet, trombone. We also offer one on one video lessons via Skype, Facebook Messenger, or any kind of video chat service you prefer.

Learn a little bit about our instructors!

Guitar

Tommy Garcia, a graduate of Berklee College Of Music teaches many styles of guitar, and is a really great guitar player.

Guitar

Bruce Hagist is a Rhode Island born guitarist, composer, and teacher. He began studying piano at the age of 9 and went on to explore other instruments including saxophone, marimba, drums and bass. He has taken extensive private lessons throughout elementary school and high school. As a student at the University of Rhode Island, Bruce is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Music Degree in Music Composition, as well as a Bachelor of Science in Psychology. While at the URI, he has had the privilege of studying with Eric Hofbauer, David Zinno, Eliane Aberdam, John Dennewitz, and Brian Cardany. He currently composes for numerous projects, and performs most recently with the URI Big Band and the post-rock band He Heard Footsteps.

Electric and Upright Bass

Joe Grilli began his musical journey playing trumpet in the middle school band. Eventually, in eighth grade, Joe began playing tuba and electric bass. He continued to play both instruments throughout high school under the direction of Metro Narcisi. As a junior, Joe decided he wanted to pursue a career in music and began playing the upright bass. He studied upright with Warwick native Dennis Pratt while in high school before deciding to continue his education at the University of Rhode Island. At URI Joe studied jazz with the legendary Dave Zinno for 5 years and received a Bacholer of Arts in Jazz Studies. Joe currently gigs around the state of Rhode Islabd in various ensembles in a range of musical styles.

Drums/Percussion

Mike Murdock is a drummer well versed in many styles including rock, jazz, funk, afro-Cuban, Brazilian, and more. After studying at the University of Rhode Island for a short time, Mike took his studies to Berklee College of music. He has studied with the likes of rock heavyweights Rod Morgenstein and Mike Mangini, to jazz/Latin greats Mark Walker, Ricardo Monzon, and Neal Smith. Since graduating from Berklee in 2011, Mike has set out to make a name for himself as a serious drummer and educator. Mike's most current performance gig is with folk/rock act Rich Ferri and the Wealth on the Water, where he plays drums/percussion, keyboards, and backing vocals. Mike currently serves as the resident drum instructor at Trinity Academy of Performing Arts in Providence, RI, and as a Providence CityArts teaching artist, and is looking forward to his role at Amped Music School.

Voice

Emilia DiCola is a classical soprano who attended Manhattan School of Music for vocal performance. While at MSM Emilia studied with renowned tenor Neil Rosenshein and coached with John Lidal. Emilia performs regularly around New England and has sung with Granite State Opera, Just Love to Sing!, Opera New Hampshire, Odyssey Opera, Opera Providence and Salt Marsh Opera. She is also a member of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, the official chorus of the Boston Symphony and Boston Pops. As a member of Tanglewood Emilia has sung at Symphony Hall in Boston, Tanglewood in Lenox, MA and a Carnegie Hall in New York City. She has also been able to sing under conductors such as Charles Dutoit, Bernard Haitink, Rafael Frübeck de Borgos, John Oliver and Keith Lockhart. Currently Emilia studies voice with soprano Andrea DelGiudice and coaches with Elaine Smith Purcell. Emilia is thrilled to join the faculty at Amped Music School!

Flute/Piano/Saxophone/Clarinet

Mitchell A. Kaplan

While graduating from the University of Rhode Island with a master’s degree in Music Education and also being alumni from the University of North Texas I had the privilege to study under such names as Jeff Coffin (Dave Mathew’s and Bella Fleck’s saxophonist), Gregg Abate (Ray Charles’s saxophonist), Dan Hearle (the piano player who recorded on several Jamie Abersol cd’s) and Mark Earle (Roomful of Blues’s saxophonist) to name a few.

His professional career contains a wide variety of accolades. He has been published through such educational institutions as Mel Bay – “Jazz Flute,” Consortium Publishing – “A Rhythm Primer,” and a self-published book entitled “Jazz For the High School Band.” Besides these books, he has written some very important articles published through Classical forums. Com.

He can be seen on the PBS television show “Arthur,” alongside of Yo Yo Ma and Joshua Redman. And several cable television shows which includes a performance alongside of Professor Joseph Parillo.

Some performances include: The Newport Jazz Festival (1981), the Kool Jazz Festival (1982), Rhine Born Blues Festival (1999), The Frank Sinatra (ghost) band, and presently in bands such as “Bar Code,” “The Club Kings,” the “Mark Cipriano and the Good News Rhythm and Blues band” and the Megan Gilbert Band.

He has over 20 years of teaching experience. Amongst his career as a professional educator he was the band director for 2 years at St. Brendan and has taught privately through many studios and at home. He was also served on the board of MENC and NAJE. He has served as an adjudicator for All–State for the past 15 years.

Guitar

Gary Joseph Potter Jr, A graduate of the Berklee College of Music. Since graduating I have immersed myself in the world of music and entertainment across all mediums and genres. I have worked as a touring guitarist for over 20 years having performed nationally and internationally with bands that include: Daughters, The Midnight Renewal, Imprint, The Jessica Lewis Band, The SOS Swing Band, The Coastline Swing Band, The New Providence Band, and the Australian rock band Bellusira. In addition to touring I have numerous recording and live theater pit orchestra credits. As an educator I have created stylistically diverse instructional content for Guitar World magazine and the app Guitar World’s “Lick of the Day”. In addition to these published instructional applications, I am the owner of Amped Music School in Rhode Island where I not only teach guitar in a private one-on-one setting but I manage the instruction of other guitarists along with drum, bass, saxophone, flute, clarinet, violin, keyboard and vocal professionals. Rounding out my true commitment to the world of music I have created a one-of-a-kind web-based guitar instructional site that promotes my unique instruction techniques and allows me to work with a worldwide audience

Piano

Jonathan Audette is currently a Piano Performance major in his senior year at the University of Rhode Island. He graduated from Lincoln High School in 2009. At the University of Rhode Island, Jonathan has played in the Ram Marching Band, Symphonic Wind Ensemble, and Concert band on Clarinet. He has also had the pleasure of performing with the Undergraduate Honors String Quartet in their spring 2011 and spring 2012 concerts, on the Schumann Piano Quintet and Dvorak Piano Quintet respectively. His freshman year, he was initiated into Phi Eta Sigma, the National Honor Society. He has been awarded the Certificate of Excellence award from Pi Kappa Lambda (Music Honor Society) both his freshman and sophomore years. His Junior year, he was initiated as an active member to PKL. Last Spring, Jonathan was a scholarship winner in the Chaminade Club competition and last June, he won the Mary K. Hail Music Mansion piano performance competition. This past January, he was a young artist division competitor in the Music Teachers National Conference performance competition representing Rhode Island. In May of 2012, he was given the Kingston Chamber Music Festival Award. Jonathan is also an active member of Kappa Kappa Psi, National Honorary Band Fraternity and currently serves as the URI chapter president. He currently receives instruction from Dr. Manabu Takasawa at URI. Jonathan is very glad to be able to share his knowledge with his students.

Trumpet

Nathan Guillemette Nathan began playing trumpet in the middle school band in 5th grade and hasn’t stopped since. He has placed highly in the RIMEA All-State competition every year since the 7th grade, and has therefore played in the Concert Band, Symphonic Band, Orchestra, and Jazz Ensemble as a part of the competition. He has opened up for the Newport Jazz Festival as a part of the All-State Jazz Ensemble and will do so again this summer. He has also been involved with the University of Rhode Island as a substitute for their band and has auditioned and placed in the Southern New England Concert Band competition hosted at URI.