Music

Jazz Camp Faculty 2026

• Keith Karns - Trumpet

  Keith Karns is a trumpet player, composer, and arranger based in the Pacific Northwest. He has worked with some of the leading voices in jazz including Stefon Harris, Lauren Sevian, Rich Perry, Kenni Holmen, Greta Matassa, Dimitri Metheny, Benny Golson, and the Kansas City Jazz Orchestra. His research focuses on the intersection of hard bop and free jazz.
  
  Keith has been the recipient of awards from ASCAP, Downbeat Magazine, the Jazz Education Network (JEN), and the National Trumpet Competition. He has performed and presented original research at the JEN Conference, the International Trumpet Guild Conference (ITG), the NAfME Northwest Conference, the Alaska Music Education Association Conference, the Oregon Music Education Association Conference, and the Texas Music Educator’s Association Conference. Keith has released two albums of his original compositions and arrangements for big band, and his big band has toured nationally.
  
  Keith is the director of jazz at Central Washington University. He directs CWU Jazz Band I, & II, the CWU Afro Cuban Jazz Ensemble, and teaches courses in improvisation, arranging and coaches CWU combos. He is the director of the CWU John Moawad Memorial Jazz Festival, and the CWU Summer Jazz Camp.
  
  Keith Karns holds degrees from the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire, Indiana University, and the University of North Texas. His teachers include John Harbaugh, Bob Baca, David Baker, Bill Adam, Joey Tartell, Vern and Jan Kagarice, Jay Saunders, Rich DeRosa, and John Murphy.
  
  Keith performs on a custom trumpet built by Fred Powell. He is a Torpedo Bag performing artist, and uses Torpedo Bags to transport and protect all of his trumpets.
  
  
  
  

• Kate Olson - Saxophone

  Kate Olson is an improvising saxophonist and music educator based in Seattle, WA. Since moving to Seattle in 2010, she has done her best to infiltrate the local, regional and international improvised music scenes. She can be heard performing with her own projects KO SOLO and KO ELECTRIC, and as a collaborator with the Royal Room Collective Music Ensemble and Electric Circus (led by Wayne Horvitz), Birch Pereira and the Gin Joints, Battlestar Kalakala (formerly West Seattle Soul/the Pulsations) and with such Seattle staples as the Seattle Men's and Women's Choruses and cabaret producers Can Can Presents and Verlaine & McCann.
  
  Kate has a BA in Music (Jazz Emphasis) from the University of Wyoming and an MM in Improvisation from the University of Michigan, and is currently on the jazz faculty at Pacific Lutheran University.
  
  Kate’s international resume continues to grow, including performances in Russia, Latvia, Turkey, Switzerland, South Korea, Cuba, and Slovakia. She has appeared on stage with Terry Riley, Stuart Dempster, Pauline Oliveros, Allison Miller, Bobby Previte, Skerik, Patricia Barber and pop music icons Elvis Costello, Brandi Carlile, and Sir Mix-a-lot, Seattle Repertory Theater, and Cafe Nordo, among others. Kate was nominated in 2011 and 2013 for the Earshot Golden Ear Award in the Emerging Artist category, and in 2014 and 2016, she was nominated for the Best NW Instrumentalist Category, and in 2016 her band KO Ensemble was also nominated as best NW Alternative Group. In 2020 the KO Ensemble won the Golden Ear Award.

• Jakub Rojek - Piano

  Pianist and composer Jakub Rojek has appeared alongside jazz greats Dave Holland, Roscoe Mitchell, Dave Douglas, Cecil McBee, and has been awarded prizes and scholarships from International Composition Competition in Darmstadt, Germany, Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart, New England Conservatory, and performed in venues such as Jordan Hall in Boston, Steinway Hall and Spectrum in NYC, Crowder Hall in Tucson, Chopin Theatre in Chicago. His works have been featured at Oh My Ears New Music Festival in Phoenix, Tocalo Tucson and documented on five album releases. Rojek has received commissions and worked with visual artist Karine Laval, Grammy-nominated multi-reedman Aaron Kruziki, Polish soprano Milena Lange, Self-Imposed Exile, Javelinas, Sentient Lacuna, Leah Netsky, film maker Özlem Ayse Özgür, film producer Michael Dohrmann, and percussionist Michael Pratt.

• Conner Eisenmenger - Trombone

  Seattle-based trombonist Conner Eisenmenger’s experience as a musician is both varied and substantial. Eisenmenger holds a Bachelor's degree in Music Education from Western Kentucky University and a Master's degree in Jazz Studies from University of North Texas where he had the privilege of playing in the One O’ Clock Lab Band. Eisenmenger’s teachers include Eddie
  Clark, Lee Blakeman, Tony Baker,and Andre Hayward.
  
  In his time since school, He has kept an active calendar as a clinician, public educator, and touring band leader. His quintet, the “Think Tank'' finds spaces for the voice of the trombone within Folk, Indie Rock, Contemporary Classical, and Jazz styles. A piece written for the Think Tank,“Choice Paralysis” received the 2022 ASCAP Herp Alpert Young Jazz Composer’s Award.
  Other performance accolades include winning the 2019 ITEC Rich Matteson Jazz Euphonium Competition and winning second prize in the 2020 International Online Trombone Competition.

• Heather Chriscaden - Bass

  Bassist Heather Chriscaden grew up in the Pacific Northwest, where her early influences included lessons with jazz greats Ray Brown and John Clayton. She received a BM in Double Bass Performance from WSU and was the first recipient of the University of Oregon’s Master of Music in Jazz Studies. She has performed various styles of music all over the world: jazz ensembles from Seattle to New York and Colombia to Japan; orchestra and chamber groups across the country; and klezmer performances from Krakow, Poland to Leonard Nimoy’s synagogue series in California.
  
  As an educator, Heather has taught private lessons for ages 3-70, and was a tenured faculty member teaching music theory and ear training at Edmonds Community College in Washington State. She has been on the faculty of music camps around the country and was an assistant director for both the Frank DeMiero Jazz Camp in WA and the Stokes Forest Music Camp through the University of Montclair in NJ. She also taught low strings for the New York Pops Musical Mentors and was a rhythm section coach for the Grammy in the Schools Program.
  
  After a 16-year jaunt to New York, Heather is thrilled to be reunited with the mountains, trees, people, and music of the PNW. She continues her career as bassist and educator, embarking on projects with Greg Williamson (Brushes and Bass), Ann Reynolds (The History of Jazz Through the Music of Mary Lou Williams), and more.

• Greg Williamson - Drums

  Greg Williamson is a jazz drummer, percussionist, composer, musical instigator, and keeper of a jazz flame. Williamson is an active performer, educator and clinician. He is instructor of drum set and percussion at Western Washington University. He works regularly at Green River College, Bellevue College, and was the graduate jazz and percussion assistant at Central Washington University for two years. Greg holds a Master of Music degree in Percussion Performance and Jazz Pedagogy (CWU) and a Bachelor of Music in Jazz Studies (WWU). He also leads the Greg Williamson Quartet, New Sextet, and the Pony Boy All-Star Big Band.
  
  Early musical highlights include stints with Woody Herman’s Young Thundering Herd (1988-89), The Glenn Miller Orchestra (1988) and The Harry James Orchestra. He toured many times with Steve Allen, Joe Williams, Rosemary Clooney, pianist Paul Smith, comedians Louis Nye and Bill “Jose Jimenez” Dana, and others. Through the 1990’s Greg was often seen onstage leading and contracting with icons like Don Rickles, Bob Newhart, and Joan Rivers; and as a regular member and musical director for jazz vocalist Ernestine Anderson.
  
  Greg Williamson formed Pony Boy Records in the mid 1990s. PBR is an independent record label made up of straight ahead jazz artists with a Northwest focus. PBR has over 60 releases to date, including CD’s by Williamson’s Big Bad Groove Society, GW Quartet, Pony Boy All-Star Big Band, Double Sax Quintet (listed in the Jazz Times Year in Review Critics Picks 2002), and many more. PBR is distributed worldwide by Burnside Distribution. Williamson produced the annual Pony Boy Records Jazz Picnic for 10 years, which won awards for contributions to the community by Earshot Jazz, and whose t-shirts still adorn the fans and musicians of the Northwest Jazz Scene.
  
  Williamson has been instrumental in the creation of a non-profit performance and education venue in North Bend, Washington, Boxley's and the Boxley's Music Fund – along with satellite venues, now collectively called JazzClubsNW. The non-profit venture has partnered with many community members, producing Jazz Walks, festivals, public concerts, and live recordings – including Live at Boxley’s with the Danny Kolke Trio + Pete Christlieb.