Music Production & Sound Design for Visual Media Programs Faculty

Music Instructor – Music Production

• Lincoln is a professional audio engineer, instructor and musician. He is a live sound engineer at the SF Jazz center working with artists such as John Legend, Wayne Shorter, and the Kronos Quartet. He is also an A/V technician, mixing multi-source audio for corporate environments at Google and Facebook.
• Lincoln has 20 years of performance and study of the bass guitar, double bass, music theory, rhythm, and sight-reading.

Education:

Bachelor of Science, Expression College for Digital Arts (Emeryville, California, Sound Arts)

Music Instructor – Music Scoring

• Eric is a part time music instructor at the academy of art university and has been teaching since 2013.
• Eric is a solo pianist with a collection of original pieces for piano entitled: Follow Your Heart.
• In addition, he is also a keyboardist and arranger for Niel Sedaka, South Street Players, Rachel Rodriguez, and Gringo Starzz.

Education:

Bachelor of Music, Belmont University (Nashville, Tennessee, Music Composition)

Music Instructor – Music Production, Sound Design

• Stanford University’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics.
• Jeffrey is known for creative sound design and music in short form media and commercials, as well as abstract sound art and synthesis. He has worked as a professional sound designer and music composer for over 20 years.
• His projects have won various awards, including 2 Clio (2015) and 1 Cannes Gold Lion (2017) awards for music and sound. He has published 11 albums of original music.
• Jeffrey has been an instructor at the Academy of Art University since 2019, previously teaching music and sound at the Los Angeles Film and Recording Schools teaching film sound design and dialogue editing.

Education:

Bachelor of Arts, Stanford University (Stanford, California, Music, Science, and Technology)

30+ yrs experience in film, documentaries, television, music videos, and theater.

Education:

Bachelor of Arts, Berklee College Music (Boston, Massachusetts, Music Production and Engineering)

Music Instructor – Music Scoring

• Jonathan Galland is a music composer from Paris, France, a recipient of numerous Art grants, and international music awards. Classically trained from a young age as a violinist and through the French music conservatories, he later found his calling in the field music of composition for motion pictures.
• Jonathan has composed music for animated shorts, feature films, advertising, Public Service Announcement (PSA), and figure skating shows featuring Olympic athletes, national champions, and performers from Disney on Ice, Stars on Ice, Holiday on Ice, Broadway on Ice, Ice Capades, and from Cirque du Soleil.
• He has also created original music for three-time Olympic figure skater and four-time World champion Kurt Browning. Jonathan was awarded an “Alien of Extraordinary Ability” Green Card (“Einstein” Visa) for his work as a composer.

Education:

Master of Fine Arts, Academy of Art University (San Francisco, California, Music Prod/Sound Design)

Music Instructor – Music Theory & Harmony

• Craig started at the Academy of Art University in 2011. He has authored the “Advance Music Theory” online course 610.
• Craig has over 40 years of teaching experience and is a professional trombonist. He has performed with the LA Phil, Lalo Schifrin, Stan Kenton, and others.
• Additionally, Craig is a composer who has released 8 albums of original music, and his music is carried by the Smithsonian in Washington DC.

Education:

Master of Arts, Univeristy of California Los Angeles (Los Angeles, California, Music Composition)

Music Instructor – Sound Design

• Gregory has been teaching music for 17 years.
• He worked on music compositions for Fresh TV and wrote the music for the short video series titled Lucas the Spider.
• Additionally, Gregory has also worked as an audio engineer for TraxByWAX.

Education:

Master of Music, California State University, Los Angeles (Los Angeles, California, Commercial Music)

Music Instructor – Sound Design and Music Production

• 23+ years experience as music artist, producer, composer and director.
• James is a top Hollywood Sound Designer, Supervising Sound Editor, and Re-recording Mixer.
• He is a Winner of Best Producer of the Year at the LA Music Awards in competition with Michael Jackson.
• James is also a sound designer on number #1 Box Office films with over $2.4 billion in box office sales. Additionally, James is a writer director composer producer and visual FX supervisor and has three featured films including his brand-new supernatural Science Fiction Film “The Other Side of Infinity”.
• James is a multi-instrumentalist who plays guitar, bass, drums, piano, and numerous woodwind instruments. He is also the owner of Vintage Steam – a company that designs and builds custom cars and motorcycles for films. James has been with the Academy of Art University since 2019.

Education: Bachelor of Fine Arts, California Institute of the Arts (Valencia, California, Music Composition)

Originally from Los Angeles, Bay Area Composer and Librettist, Carla Lucero, studied composition at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). Her operas, WUORNOS (2001 San Francisco); Juana (with Co-Librettist, Alicia Gaspar de Alba, 2019 Los Angeles and 2023 New York); Las tres mujeres de Jerusalén (The Three Women of Jerusalem) (2022 and 2023 Los Angeles); The Everywhere of Her (with Librettist, Velina Hasu Houston, 2023, 2024 Los Angeles), Touch (with Co-Librettist, Marianna Mott Newirth, 2024 Birmingham); ¡Chicanísima! (2024 San Francisco and 2025, 2026 Mérida, Valladolid and Morelia, México); and Hello, Star (with Librettist, Jarrod Lee, (2025 San Francisco and 2026 Baltimore); as well as two in development, TEA (with Librettist, Velina Hasu Houston, 2027 Honolulu) and Muriel & Anita (2027 Petaluma), challenge gender, racial, cultural and disability stereotypes. Lucero and her work have been awarded four OPERA America grants for the commissioning and presentation of her operas throughout the country, and has received generous support from Creative Work Fund, Horizons Foundation, Meet the Composer, InterMusic SF, New York Community Trust, California Arts Council, American Chamber Music Society and other distinguished institutions, foundations and wonderful individual donors. Her work is frequently performed internationally and was honored in 2020 with the distinction of becoming the Inaugural Composer of the Leni Alexander Festival in Santiago, Chile. She regularly creates song cycles, art songs, dance productions and music for film. In November 2025, Lucero will be scoring a documentary to be released in 2026 by The Purple Project. Selected works by Carla Lucero can be found on Navona Records, including solo piano arrangements from her opera WUORNOS; a Spanish language aria from Juana, “Sin vos”; and an upcoming song cycle, Love in Times of War.

Music Instructor – Sound Design

• Brian graduated from the Academy with BA in motion pictures in 1999. Immediately upon graduating he got a job at Skywalker Sound.
• While there Brian worked on some of the biggest blockbuster films such as Star Wars: Episode 1 and 2. Monsters INC, Finding Nemo, The Polar Express, and Million Dollar Baby.
• In 2006, Brian made the move back home to Los Angeles and continued to work on feature films at various places including Todd-AO and Warner Bros.
• In 2012, Brian made the jump into television at Universal. He worked on Psych, Homeland, Ray Donovan, and Bates Motel.
• Brian has 25 years of experience and is currently working on For All Mankind, Chicago PD, Chicago Fire, and Outlanders.

Education:

Bachelor of Arts, Academy of Art University (San Francisco, California, Motion Picture and Video)

Music Instructor – Music Theory & Harmony, Music Scoring

• MM from San Francisco Conservatory of Music and a DMA from Manhattan School of Music – both in Composition
• Jason has been with the Academy since 2011. He is a career pianist, composer, private instructor, music director, band leader, producer, and arranger working with Bay Area musicians and singers for over 25 years.
• He has written a music theory book entitled “The Elements of Music” published by Wooden Books and Bloomsbury, and translated into ten languages to date.

Education:

Doctor of Music, Manhattan School of Music (New York, New York, Music Composition)

Music Instructor – Sound Design

• George is a college educator and Pro Tools Certified Instructor since 2007. He is experienced in audio post-production for film, games, television, and audio production for music.
• He has worked at Skywalker Sound including Star Wars: Episode II Revenge of the Sith, The Incredibles, The Polar Express, Twisted,
• Mystic River, Minority Report, Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones, Hart’s War, Panic Room, Bandits, and Monsters INC.
• George has also won multiple Academy Awards for Sound Editing.

Education:

Bachelor of Arts, San Francisco State University (San Francisco, California, Broadcast and Electronic Communications)

20+ yrs. experience in music performance and theory instruction

Music Instructor – Music Production

• Christopher “Kit” Ruscoe, originally from Louisville KY, studied classical composition at the University of Louisville and jazz performance and improvisation at the University of North Texas.
• He has over 25 years of experience in composing, performing, recording, and teaching music and guitar and is a member of ASCAP.
• Kit is currently working on film scoring and compositions for TV and documentaries as well as playing in several recognized bay area bands.

Education:

Master of Arts, San Francisco State University (San Francisco, California, Broadcast & Electronic Communication Arts)