MASTERCLASSES
Throughout the year Masterclasses are booked by our Director to bring in industry professionals to teach specific classes or to simply explain about their career and profession so that LJMA students can get a wider understanding of the opportunities of employment in the Music Industry. These masterclasses can either be open to the entire academy or specific to a class subject.
TREY GIDDENS
Trey Giddens, a graduate of Abraham Baldwin and Mercer University, has been a music educator for over 20 years. At New Manchester High School he served as the Fine Arts Magnet Director and had the pleasure of directing the award winning Fame Choirs, and the nationally recognized and award winning a cappella group InToneNation who he led to hold the national ICHSA title in 2019. Mr. Giddens is a sought after show choir choreographer and choral/a cappella clinician who works with choirs and a cappella groups of all ages around the country. He is currently the vocal director at the Cobb County Center for Excellence in the Performing Arts (CCCEPA) at Pebblebrook High School where he also coaches and directs the award-winning a cappella group Sonic Edge. Trey is a 2020 Grammy nominee, a 2019 teacher of the year, and has received the Arts Educator award. Trey is the Musical Director for Tinsel Tones Atlanta and Co-founder of the a cappella group Dressed To Trill.
FRANCISCO RUIZ
Francisco Ruiz is a vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, arranger, music director, and faculty member at the Los Angeles College of Music. He has a Bachelor of Music from Berklee College of Music in Vocal Performance & Contemporary Writing and Production, and a Masters of Music from California State University, Los Angeles in Choral Conducting. He performed at the Viña del Mar International Song Festival in 2016, winning best performance, and has also performed and directed choirs at venues that include the Walt Disney Concert Hall and Jimmy Kimmel Live! He has been a vocal educator for over 8 years, touring with vocal projects and sharing his knowledge in vocal improvisation acquired by studying and performing with ten-time Grammy Award winner Bobby Mcferrin and members of Voicestra.
ROB DIETZ
Rob Dietz is a multiple award-winning singer and vocal percussionist who has been arranging, composing, teaching, and performing contemporary a cappella music for over twenty years. Based in Los Angeles, Rob is best known for his work as an arranger and group coach for NBC’s The Sing-Off. His work as an arranger has allowed him collaborations with Grammy award-winning groups Pentatonix, The Swingles, Voiceplay, Kings Return, and many more. He has been a contributing arranger for performances by world-renowned artists including Smokey Robinson, Flo Rida, Sara Bareilles, Incubus, and Pat Benatar. His arrangements have been featured on several TV shows, including America’s Got Talent (NBC), To All The Boys: P.S I Still Love You (Netflix), and Pitch Slapped (Lifetime). Rob’s passion for A Cappella education lead him to co-found and direct A Cappella Academy alongside fellow A Cappella trailblazers Ben Bram and Avi Kaplan. Rob is also the director of Legacy: an auditioned, community youth a cappella group based in Los Angeles. Since the group’s inception, Legacy has performed twice at Carnegie Hall, and has won the Los Angeles A Cappella Festival’s Scholastic Competition.
CHARLEAN CARMON
Charlean Carmon has been a working singer for over 20 years, performing on stages around the world with artists like Christina Aguilera, Eric Clapton and Stevie Wonder. Her off-camera film and television credits include Dreamgirls, Guardians Of The Galaxy II, Hidden Figures, Deadpool II, Nope, The Simpsons, & The Get Down. She's been a session vocalists for multiple albums including Leonard Cohen’s “Popular Problems,” Christina Aguilera’s “Stripped” and “Back To Basics,” Katy Perry’s “Witness,” and Harry Styles' “Sign Of The Times.” With over 800 television appearances, she's been part of award shows and television programs that include The Grammys, The Emmys, The Academy Awards, Saturday Night Live, America’s Got Talent, The Voice, The Ellen Show, & American Idol. She also took on the role of vocal producer for 3 seasons of American Idol. She now also shares her experience and passion for music history as a teaching artist.
DEKE SHARON
Deke Sharon is a performer, arranger, music producer, author, producer, and coach who is extremely well known for his work on the Pitch Perfect franchise. Heralded as “The Father of Contemporary A Cappella,” he is credited by many as being responsible for the current sound of modern a cappella. Deke founded the Contemporary A Cappella Society while in college, and is responsible for creating many seminal a cappella programs, including the CARAs (Contemporary A Cappella Recording Awards), the ICCAs (International Championship of College A Cappella), the BOCAs (Best of College A Cappella Compilations), the first contemporary a cappella conference (the A Cappella Summit), the Contemporary A Cappella League, several professional ensembles including DCappella, as well as the educational residential program Camp A Cappella. He is also one of contemporary a cappella’s most prolific arrangers, having arranged over 2,000 songs, with over a thousand of them in print worldwide. Deke shared the stage around the world with countless music legends, including Ray Charles, James Brown, Crosby Stills and Nash, Run DMC, The Temptations, LL Cool J and the Four Tops, and is also the vocal orchestrator for and a producer of the Broadway’s first a cappella musical: In Transit (2016). He vocally produced five seasons of The Sing Off for NBC in the US as well as multiple international versions.
BEN BRAM
Ben Bram is a 2x Grammy and Emmy Award winning vocal arranger, producer, and engineer. He graduated from the USC Thornton School of Music with a degree in music industry and vocal jazz. While at USC, he sang with, arranged for, and musically directed five-time ICCA champions the SoCal VoCals. It was through this group that he met Scott Hoying, who he would eventually help assemble a group to audition for NBC's The Sing-Off. The group would go on to become the award-winning, world-renowned vocal sensation known as Pentatonix. With Ben as their arranging collaborator, producer, and engineer, Pentatonix to date has sold nearly 10 million albums worldwide. Nine of their albums have reached the top 10 on Billboard’s 200 chart (2 at #1) and they’ve received multiple RIAA certifications for multi-platinum, platinum and gold-selling albums and singles. Ben also has extensive experience in film and TV projects. He worked behind the scenes of Pitch Perfect 1 and 2, The Sing-Off, and Glee, providing expertise as an arranger, coach, vocal producer, on set music director, and studio vocalist. Most recently, Ben launched a female pop/R&B vocal group called Citizen Queen along with Scott Hoying, and Shams Ahmed.
JAMOND MCCOY
Jamond is an improvisational jazz and gospel influenced vocalist, pianist, composer, arranger, session singer, and accompanist creating music for various venues and other fellow musicians. He is the vocal jazz director at California Baptist University and is high demand as a teacher, clinician, and adjudicator for jazz festivals and camps. He is also a church music director and performs extensively around the LA area as a vocalist and keyboard/piano/organ player.