In its second day out of five, the UNC Summer Jazz Workshop is going strong.
Today, I had the chance to speak briefly with one of the workshop’s participants, guitarist Espen Raustol. Raustol agreed to be interviewed just as he was leaving one of the daily guitar lessons that runs from 3:15-4:15 p.m.
Raustol is a rising high school junior from Asheville, North Carolina. He said he came to the workshop to learn from professional jazz artists, among whose ranks he would like to find himself in a few years.
He said that he has played jazz guitar for “the last two or three years,” and that his biggest inspiration as a guitarist of the genre has been the great Wes Montgomery.
When asked if he was contemplating attending UNC once he graduates from high school, he indicated that he was definitely more interested in the school now that he had gotten the chance to experience Chapel Hill, and a great learning environment on campus, for himself. He said that he was really enjoying the Workshop thus far and had, “learned a lot,” from his instructors, who, he said, “[brought] a variety of perspectives,” to the table.
Raustol and his fellow workshop participants can be heard in jazz combo performances Friday, June 24 at 3 p.m. at Moeser Auditorium in Hill Hall.