Educational Outreach
Sam is a passionate and experienced educator who teaches with the same exuberance and spirit of discovery that he brings to his music. Sam has been a bandleader for Jazz at Lincoln Center's highly acclaimed Jazz For Young People program since 2013, and has led hundreds of concert workshops in public schools throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Washington D.C., Memphis, Nashville, Chicago, Lafayette, Atlanta and New Orleans. Through his work with the U.S. Department of State, Sam has led concerts and workshops about American folk music in China, Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, Turkey and Azerbaijan. Sam is a regular faculty member at the Stanford Jazz Workshop where he has taught courses on music composition and theory, American roots music, and jazz and music history.
Sample Outreach Program
Roots of Freedom is a 60-minute educational concert that puts American roots music in conversation with major cultural themes of the last century and challenges students to consider the important role of music and art in the world of tomorrow. Sam and the Human Hands lead a musical tour beginning in New Orleans at the turn of the century up through rural Appalachia to New York City and the Harlem Renaissance. Through captivating performance and interactive activities, Sam and his band demonstrate how the structure of an ensemble can be a model for a functioning, democratic society, how the blues provides a platform for self-expression, and how improvisation and active listening allow a community to support a plurality of diverse voices.