Matthew "Shark" Shartsis is a Bay Area native. With a small amount of exposure to piano and guitar at a young age, he was deterred by instructors who only taught the "textbook" way, leaving Shark confused about the fundamentals of music and somewhat outcast from feeling he had the ability to learn.

This experience shaped Shark's approach to teaching and music education, letting the student guide as much as possible while maintaining structure for the fundamental skills needed to really learn how to participate in collaborative and solo music creation.

Instead of music in his younger years, Shark was an elite athlete, recruited to Arizona State University to play Baseball. His experience there led him, ultimately, back to the Bay Area where he helped guide College of San Mateo to the CA Junior College World Series (Final Four). His baseball journey would teach him crucial leadership skills, and the ever important lessons of persistence and discipline; both of which he has transferred into his music (and teaching) journey.

After his baseball experience, he returned to his ever present interest in learning to play music, which he then taught himself to do. Over the ensuing years he would learn to be proficient in guitar, piano, bass, drums and voice. After attending a plethora of community colleges and finally earning a BA in Critical Film Studies from University of Colorado, he returned to the Bay Area to pursue music with the band he founded, General Jones.

Over the early 2000s and into the 2010s, Shark played shows all around the Bay Area and pacific NW with the band, as well as appearing with various other acts in the Bay Area music scene as a guitarist, singer, and piano player. In 2011, he was hired as the Music Director of Rock Project. He has been in that position ever since, building new programs and focusing his energy on creating a safe collaborative environment for all students interested in music.

Over the 10 years of his service as the music director, he has overseen hundreds of live events, launched a prolific Original Songwriting program which has created nearly 200 original songs, and mentored and taught individual students of all ages and skill levels.

His goal for SFRP is to make music accessible, and put instruments in the hands of as many people as possible to give them the opportunity to unlock their inner creativity and collaborative spirit. He now plays as a solo artist under the title Thee Great White Shark.

Derek Barber is a Bay Area-based guitarist, songwriter, and music educator. In 2008, Barber graduated from the University of Michigan with a BFA in Jazz Improvisation in Guitar. On a full-ride scholarship to the University’s School of Music, he studied privately with internationally-acclaimed Jazz musicians/educators Geri Allen and Robert Hurst. There, he honed his improvisation, transcription, and music theory – skills he brings to his musical pursuits as well as to his fifteen-plus years of teaching.

An active contributor and member of critically-acclaimed Bay Area bands Bells Atlas, Astronauts, etc., Barber’s solo project is Perhapsy, and he is also a sought-after session guitarist. He has recorded numerous sessions at Tiny Telephone Studios, Fantasy, Decibelle, and several others. Aside from experience in teaching, music composition, recording, editing, and mixing, Barber is also a regularly-hired visual artist.

He believes in a cheerful and professional attitude towards teaching his students and is a firm believer that music and art is a truly exciting and life-long pursuit.

www.jordanglennmusic.com

Jordan Glenn spent his formative years in Oregon drawing cartoons, taking dance classes from his aunt, making movies and studying jazz, classical, and rock music. In 2006 he relocated to the Bay Area where he received an MFA from Mills College. Since then he has been most closely associated with guitarist Fred Frith (Henry Cow), percussionist William Winant (John Zorn, Mr. Bungle) and free-jazz legend/composer/teacher Roscoe Mitchell. He also works closely with the prog-folk band Jack O' The Clock, bizzaro rock group Inward Creature and jazz bassist Lisa Mezzacappa. Other collaborators have included tUnE-yArDs, Rhys Chatham, Secret Chiefs 3, and The Rova Sax Quartet. As a composer he has been commissioned to create music for evening-length dance pieces by Sharp & Fine and Liss Fain Dance. As a band leader he has composed and conducted the trio Wiener Kids, Mindless Thing (a collaboration with poet Jim Ryan) and the percussion heavy large ensemble BEAK.

Larry Boothroyd is a San Franciscan musician, originally from Santa Rosa, CA. He began his musical adventure playing trombone in elementary school, and tinkering with the family piano, but got serious with it in junior high when his father brought home a 5-piece Ludwig drum kit. He taught himself by playing along with records and reading books. In high school, his mother started renting out the garage to a local Prog band, who’s drummer gave him his first (and only) bass lessons. By his senior year, he was fully immersed in the Bay Area punk scene, regularly attending shows in San Francisco and playing locally with his first band. At age 18 he cofounded Victims Family, embarked on their first U.S. tour at 19 and got signed for their first album at age 20. Since then he has appeared on nearly 50 records, played in 30 countries and been involved in every aspect of being in a band, from the writing, recording and performing of music, to booking and promoting shows, and designing records, t-shirts and posters. For the last 10 years he has also been teaching and directing shows at San Francisco Rock Project, and is currently a member of Jello Biafra & the Guantanamo School of Medicine.

David Newman - or Newman - plays guitar. He likes continued skill-building on the instrument. He is versed in engaging with guitar students. His techniques include yellow, also screaming. “Kids respond well.” Areas of growth include: developing ear, composing, improvising (jamming), learning about the fingerboard (which he refers to as “the beguiling matrix of secrets.” Genres of interest include: Classic and other Rocks, Jazz, Gypsy Jazz, Bluegrass, Dead, Old Country. In order to re-confuse himself, he has recently taken up the five-string banjo and is working on clawhammer, 3-finger, and plectrum techniques. Newman also does what he calls Shopless Lutherie, building and working on guitars with hand tools in his room, often using unused guitars and overlooked parts from San Francisco Rock Project. He draws a lot.

Nick Jong is an SF native musician and multi-instrumentalist instructor. Before teaching at SFRP, he was a student at the school from its beginning in 2010 until 2017. While primarily playing rock guitar for the past 12 years, Nick is also well-versed in jazz, funk, metal, and has studied music theory and latin music history. In general, Nick enjoys engaging with students as peers, having been one at the school himself for 7 years, and understands the school from both the perspective of a teacher/director as well as a learner and beginner. While having an appreciation for classic rock throughout the ages, he also enjoys modern movements in rock, funk, and pop, taking no music off the table.

Ellie Stokes is a San Francisco-based musician, songwriter, nonprofit director, and all-around advocate for live music and arts accessibility! Ellie specializes in teaching piano, voice, elementary guitar, and harp. Ellie is active within the Bay Area music community plays around the Bay frequently with her band, Grooblen, and just embarked on her first tour back in March 2020 to SXSW. Ellie is also a session pianist and occasionally sings backing vocals in the band, Rose Haze. In addition to her eclectic local music presence, Ellie is also the artistic director and founder of the Big Leap Collective, a Bay-based 501c3 nonprofit that specializes in accessible and interactive music events, arts education, and providing health resources at community-oriented shows. Ellie is also a Rock Project alum and believes that music is the universal language and that we can learn so much from connecting and collaborating through playing and learning instruments!

TONY BEDNAR
(DRUMS, PERCUSSION)

COLE BERLINER*
(GUITAR, VOCALS)

DYLAN BROCK
(HOUSE BAND, GUITAR, BASS)

SHERI EVANS
(OPERATIONS)

RAPHI GOTTESMAN
(GUITAR, BASS, DRUMS)

PAUL GRIES
(GUITAR, BASS)

GUTHRIE ALLEN
(OPERATIONS, House Band, Guitar+)

MARC MALAKIE
(OPERATIONS)

JASON HOOPES
(BASS)

WARREN HUEGEL
(DRUMS)

SIVAN LIONCUB
(VOCALS, VIOLIN)

AJ MCKINLEY
(GUITAR, KEYBOARDS, VOCALS)

AVA MENDOZA
(GUITAR)

MAX MERCIER*
(GUITAR, BASS, VOCALS)

CADENCE MYLES
(DRUMS, PERCUSSION)

SPENCER OWEN
(OPERATIONS)

DAVID SECOUR
(PIANO/KEYBOARDS)

SEAN SMITH
(HOUSE BAND, GUITAR, BASS)

RALPH SPIGHT
(GUITAR, BASS)