Faculty and Staff
MTRA faculty and staff are dedicated to providing you with the opportunities and skills to succeed in the music industry.
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Matt Blostein, Lead Faculty
Matt Blostein is the Director of the Music Technology and Recording Arts Program at Cabrillo College. He has also taught at Five Towns College, University of Valley Forge, and the Manhattan School of Music, teaching graduate and undergraduate level Music Technology courses. He is also a certified Wwise Instructor.
Matt has composed and produced music for television, radio, commercials, movie trailers, video games, and recording artists. He has composed & produced music heard on over 500 TV episodes and commercials.
Matt obtained his undergraduate degree in Jazz Performance from the Manhattan School of Music, and a graduate degree in Music Technology from the University of Valley Forge.
Matt spent many years touring throughout the US, Europe and Asia as a saxophonist with bands such as Maynard Ferguson and The Tommy Dorsey Orchestra. Matt can be heard on albums with Charlie Hunter, Ingrid Jensen, Aaron Parks, Shane Endsley (Kneebody), Thomas Morgan, Liam Sillery, Vinnie Sperrazza, Jacob Sacks, Jacob Garchik, and Tim Collins.
Elk Latham, Performing Arts Specialist
Elk Latham is an experienced sound engineer/designer/musician who specializes in Music production for recorded and concert sound. Before coming to Cabrillo, he spent his time freelancing as a recording engineer around the San Francisco Bay Area while working as a QA hardware engineer for Digidesign/Avid helping to produce products for the Pro Tools Digital Audio Workstation. After moving to Santa Cruz he founded SilverTop Productions specializing in Music production, Studio, and Live recording.
At Cabrillo, Elk is the resident Sound Engineer for all college events held within the Music,Theater Arts, and Dance departments. He also supports and maintains all equipment used within the MTRA program.
What Elk loves about being at Cabrillo is being able to share his experience with students by providing real world experiences and opportunities in recording and live sound productions.
Jim Stewart, Instructor
Jim Stewart has been teaching at Cabrillo since 1991. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Music Composition/Theory from UC Davis, and a Master of Arts from San Jose State University with an emphasis in Electronic Music. Prior to joining Cabrillo, Jim worked at the music software company Passport Design and lectured at SJSU. He now teaches percussion and recording techniques classes at Cabrillo and instrumental music classes at Soquel High. When he's not teaching music, he's playing music, spending his spare time as a drummer for local music groups such as The Mike Hadley Band.