GJCW Faculty
Below you will meet the the jazz educators who have served as combo directors over the years. Faculty assignments for a specific combo will vary from year to year and from session to session, but all of our directors are accomplished players and dedicated jazz educators.
Bill Chapin
Bill Chapin serves as the Grayslake Jazz Combo Workshop coordinator as well as a faculty member. He has been playing jazz piano professionally in the Chicago area since 1978 and has been teaching jazz piano since 1990. He has taught jazz improvisation at the the College of Lake County and Carmel High School and currently teaches jazz piano and improvisation at Chapin Jazz Studio. Bill performs regularly with multiple groups and leads the Chapin Jazz X-tet. He finds joy seeing students grow creatively through their experiences improvising with others in jazz combos.
Paul Nielsen
Currently the choral director at the College of Lake County and Choir Director at Grayslake North High School, as well as directing Slam Funk and the Pirates Choir at Grayslake High School, Dr. Paul Nielsen has a deep and varied background in performing and teaching jazz. While earning a Bachelors in Music Education from DePaul University, Paul studied with Alan Swain. He was graduated with a Masters in Music Education from VanderCook and is certified in the use of Finale musical notation software.
A multi-instrumentalist, Paul performs regularly in a wide variety of professional settings on piano, bass, guitar, and sax, allowing him to offer expertise to jazz combo students on not only improvisation in a combo setting but also instruction particular to each of the instruments.
Beyond his directing duties at the Grayslake high schools, Paul also performs with a number of groups in the area.
