Grammy award-winning teachers

DANIEL McCABE | Did you watch the last Grammy Awards? So did Steven Epstein, only he probably had a better seat than you did. An adjunct professor in the Faculty of Music, Epstein was in New York's Radio City Music Hall, viewing the proceedings live. Mind you, it was a little hard for him to keep focused on the show -- awards presenters kept calling out his name to come up on stage and receive a Grammy himself.

Epstein earned two Grammys that night, one for best classical music album and one for best classical music producer. He now has four Grammys in all and albums he's worked on have earned 21 Grammy nominations. He's collaborated with some of the biggest names in the music industry, including Isaac Stern, Zubin Mehta, Wynton Marsalis and Yo-Yo Ma.

So what's a guy like that doing jumping into his car at the crack of dawn to drive several hours to Montreal so he can teach McGill students in the University's sound recording program?

Epstein makes the trek four times a year and says it's a pleasure.

"It's great to be able to share my ideas with the kind of exuberant, talented young people that study at McGill. I think the program that Wieslaw (Woszczyk, the chair of McGill's sound recording area) has instituted is probably the best of its kind in the world.

"The students in the program get a fantastic background in all aspects of recording techniques and engineering, but Wieslaw also encourages the students to think for themselves.

"My first-hand experience with students from other programs is that they graduate with the textbook tucked under their arms and they'll always refer back to it instead of using their own ears. When they're setting up a microphone, they'll refer to the exact specifications of what the textbook says they ought to do and the result is a lot of generic sounding recordings. That isn't the case with Wieslaw's graduates. Two of the best sound engineers I've ever worked with came out of the McGill program."

Epstein isn't the only high-profile adjunct professor connected to McGill's program. George Massenburg, another Grammy winner, taught at McGill last month. He's helped record and produce albums by Lyle Lovett, Aaron Neville and Linda Ronstadt. Dr. Takeo Yamamoto, who just left Montreal after conducting several workshops for the program's students, is the former head of research and development at Pioneer Electronics, where he was one of the developers of the laser disc.

Woszczyk says these well-connected adjunct professors help demystify the music business for his students. Students learn that the recording challenges facing the pros "are not a maze of over-engineered, super-complicated puzzles, but clear, logical and friendly concepts to which there are good solutions. Students begin to feel that they can participate in this profession, and they are inspired with confidence."

Woszczyk says his program's teaching patterns differ from those in many other McGill faculties. "Our teaching method uses workshops and seminars rather than weekly lectures. We realized that it is more effective to be fully immersed in a problem-solving exercise for a week, or two full days, than to chip at it for a couple of hours each week. In sound recording, it is more effective to emulate the real lab conditions of the industry by bringing a professional person in for an intensive block of learning."

Woszczyk says it isn't all that hard to recruit top talents to teach in his program. "Our graduates make a very good name for us."