education
Being an educator of jazz music is one of my true passions. Having started teaching privately while still in high school, I have had many years to refine and hone my approach. Starting in 2008, I embarked on my collegiate teaching career and have been either full-time or adjunct faculty at various Universities since then. Additionally, I have been fortunate to maintain an active private studio out of my home focusing on jazz and improvisation for students of all ages. I thoroughly enjoy and understand the difference in approaches that one must take when stepping into the classroom versus teaching someone one-on-one.
As Coordinator of Jazz Studies at Northwestern University, I served for six years as a Lecturer working exclusively with music majors in ensembles and classrooms. Since then, I have been fortunate to join the faculty at the University of Illinois at Chicago and teach several courses that are intended for non-musicians as well as maintaining a presence in music classrooms. At UIC (and my other current adjunct position, saxophone instructor at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside), I also deal with individual students in their study of the saxophone and jazz improvisation. I have developed an approach to private lessons that follows this path: transcription of jazz masters, extraction of important concepts from the solos, transposition of the ideas into different keys and concepts, and finally integration into the student’s natural improvisational framework. This approach is exactly what I personally use for study, and I believe it to be universally sound.
For the 2017-18 school year, I served as Interim Director of Jazz Studies at UIC, a tenure that saw the creation of the funk combo, new performance venues, and established guest artists. Additionally, I maintain an active private studio from my home.
“My lessons with Chris were always something I was excited about, while also slightly nervous. He demands progress in a serious yet supportive and fun manner, which made me work harder than I ever have before. He makes difficult concepts into teachable ones, and there are few people I know that would match his knowledge of jazz, and his ability to explain it. He is truly one of a kind. Aside from that, his album “Bonfire” is one of my favorites, showing that he is not only a great teacher, but also a masterful performer and composer.”
“Chris Madsen is an incredible and compassionate educator. I learned so much about improvisation and jazz history from him, lessons I still consider today. He was one of my favorite professors at Northwestern and I’m fortunate to have been his student.”
“Chris provides for his students a well thought out and structured pedagogy that attends to several dimensions of both the art of improvisation and the details of technical mastery of one’s instrument, drawing from his extensive experience as an improviser and bandleader and from his vast knowledge of jazz history. As I witnessed at NU and as I continue to observe when on gigs with him, I am always impressed with the seemingly endless ways Chris is able to get the best performance out of any band, whether a high school jazz combo, a college big band, or a professional ensemble.”
“Mr. Madsen was my most inspiring instructor. He always came ready to teach and was very understanding and knew how to get through to us. As gifted as he is, he showed us the mechanics of the craft and was very patient with our skill set and happily worked with us individually to help us further our playing. At MYA, I was nervous to begin playing with the best young jazz musicians in Illinois but i always looked forward to it because he made the environment so welcoming and easy to digest. I’ve had the privilege of learning from some of the best but Chris Madsen has always gone above and beyond to help his students achieve greatness. So many great memories and opportunities came from his mentorship, and I wouldn’t appreciate the craft as much as I do without his guidance and encouragement.”
“Chris Madsen is a master jazz pedagogue! I love learning from him when he clinics the big band. He is quick to identify areas that need improvement and is able to provide constructive feedback to students on each instrument. It’s wonderful to see him demonstrate drum set-ups one minute and then jump to the piano to demonstrate a piano voicing the next.”
“Chris Madsen is an incredible jazz pedagogue, composer, and performer. I’ve known him since I was in 8th grade and worked with him all though high school. As a student of his at MYA, he always brought a fresh perspective to jazz. We were constantly exposed to new, fresh, exciting pieces he would choose, even new stuff he had composed or arranged. Coming to rehearsals was always exciting because you had a director that picked great music and got the bands to play at such a high, professional-sounding level. My ability to sight read was never better than in that ensemble. As a student, you don’t often realize that what you play is a direct result of the taste of your director and he always had an incredible ear for picking tunes. The people in his big bands always played well together and got along well. He knows how to bring out the best in each of his students and really cares about their development.”
“Professor Madsen helped me to grow exponentially during my time at UIC. Both his courses and private lessons were very thorough as well as extremely enjoyable. Having professor Madsen as a jazz band director was one of the best parts of being a student at UIC.”
“Chris is an exceptional saxophonist and a passionate educator who is truly invested in his students and the music they make. He provided me with an authentic jazz education informed by years of professional experience and his encyclopedic knowledge of the music. He is very serious about the music, but also understands that part of music making is having fun and enjoying the company of other musicians. Our time together helped prepare me for playing professionally in Chicago’s jazz scene, and greatly informed my personal musicianship, appreciation for music, and approach to teaching my own students.”
“I have personally seen Chris Madsen’s teaching in a private lesson, small group (combo), and big band setting as the Director of Jazz Bands at Warren Township High School. His pedagogy and teaching style are second to none. Chris has the gift of being relatable to high school students (they love him!) and meeting them at ’their level’ while knowing how much and how far to push each student as a musician. His commitment to excellence as a performer is infectious and all of my students, as well as myself as an educator, have benefited from their time with Chris!”
“Chris spent two days working with both of the middle school jazz ensembles and both high school jazz ensembles in the Cedarburg and New London School Districts in my previous teaching positions. At the end of the two hard days of residencies, Chris joined the students in a concert celebrating all of their combined efforts.
Throughout this entire event, he was sincerely focused on all of the students and helping them to succeed and feel good about everything they were doing. He masterfully engaged each student so that all felt they were critical and important to the success of the upcoming event. In addition, many of my high school students have indicated to me personally that working with Chris Madsen helped motivate and inspire them. There is no one I would rather have clinic my new students at Menomonee falls high schools then Chris Madsen.
”
“I met Professor Madsen when I transferred to UIC as a sociology major. He welcomed me in all of the jazz ensembles, and at one point, I was playing under his direction 7 hours a week. Although I was a non-major at the time, he treated me with the same educational guidance and respect as if I were one of his jazz majors. I found him exciting, talented, and forward-thinking with his teaching concepts. He brought a lot of his own compositions and arrangements for the big band to play, and he often related jazz improvisation back to pop culture and rap references. In addition, Professor Madsen advised me personally when it came to other areas of a music degree before I ended up declaring a double major in music. I consider him not only an educator, but as a friend after being acclimated in the music program under his direction.”
““Chris Madsen is THE jazz educator. I studied with Madsen in the Northwestern University Jazz program. Not only is Madsen an incredible musician with an uncanny knowledge of the cultural history of the music, but he is an example of professionalism, kindness, and humility that I hope to see in myself, and my students. Anyone who gets the opportunity to study or play with Chris Madsen should consider it an honor. “”