Miro is an experienced and enthusiastic music educator. He is currently available to teach remotely via Zoom/Skype/Facetime to anyone with an internet connection and in-person in the Los Angeles area. Topics covered include beginner, intermediate, and advanced jazz piano, improvisation (for any instrument including voice), music theory (beginner to advanced), ear training, rhythmic training, composition/arranging, vocal accompaniment and more.
Miro has been a professional musician for two decades and he is excited to share the insights he has gained over the course of his career with interested students of any level. In addition to acoustic jazz, Miro has experience performing in a wide range of musical styles including blues, funk, soul, pop, folk, bossa nova and samba, jazz/rock fusion, free improvised music and more, and he can offer instruction and insight on playing in these musical contexts. Miro is a graduate of the Manhattan School of Music and the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance at UCLA (recently renamed the Herbie Hancock Institute). He has studied with Garry Dial, Jason Moran, Chris Rosenberg, Hal Crook, James Newton and Billy Childs, among others.
To get more info (including rates) and to book a lesson please email: info@mirosprague.com.
EDUCATION:
The Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance at UCLA
Masters of Music
June 2014
Manhattan School of Music
Bachelor of Music in Jazz Piano Performance
May 2008
Selected Teaching Experience:
Piano Faculty - Occidental College - Current
Private Music Instruction - 2005 - Present
Faculty, Interplay Jazz Camp - 2015 - 2019
Taught Masterclasses in Mexico City with Jerome Jennings Quartet - September 2019
Taught monthly workshops on improvisation - Brooklyn Music Studio - 2015 - 2016
Co-led workshops at several middle schools and high schools in Los Angeles - 2012-2014
Testimonials
“We had the great honor and privilege of hosting a concert and workshop by Mr. Sprague on September 12th 2013 as a part of our “Bosendorfer” piano series, which features elite solo pianists. Not only is Miro a fantastic pianist, jazz musician and composer, but he is a fine teacher as well, which became obvious during the one-on-one master class he did with our most advanced jazz piano students. His teaching was very personal, and in the spirit of improvisation in the moment he carefully tailored his comments and suggestions to the musical needs he perceived in the students with whom he was working. He was at once positive yet supportively demanding. The students were able to get a lot out of the workshop not only because of the content of his critique but also owing to the accessible and positive way in which he delivered it. He seems to me to embody the attributes that any successful teacher or mentor possesses: compassion, the ability to listen, and the skill to be able to quickly assess a student’s deficits and abilities and to then address these with specificity and tact”
- Andy Jaffe, pianist, composer, former director of Jazz Activities at Williams College.