Matt Blostein, Lead Faculty
Matt is currently the Lead Faculty of Music Technology and Recording Arts at Cabrillo College. He has also taught at Five Towns College, University of Valley Forge, and Manhattan School of Music, teaching graduate and undergraduate level Music Technology courses in composition, production, engineering, mixing, Pro Tools, Logic, Ableton Live, Reason and Cubase. Matt has composed and produced music for television, radio, commercials, movie trailers and recording artists. He has had music on over 100 TV shows, a theme for a major network news program and many commercials. He has an undergraduate degree in Jazz Performance from the Manhattan School of Music, a graduate degree in Music Technology from the University of Valley Forge, studied orchestration at the Mannes School of Music and film scoring with Rick Baitz. Previous to his work composing and producing music for media, Matt spent many years touring with bands such as Maynard Ferguson, The Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, Liam Sillery, and the Blostein / Sperrazza Quartet, performing in venues such as the Montreux Jazz Fest, North Sea Jazz Fest, Thailand Cultural Center, Kennedy Center, Ravinia Center and many more.
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.