About & Reviews
Chester Harlan / guitarist, composer and Berklee College of Music graduate.
For over 25 years, Chester Harlan, guitarist, composer and Berklee College of Music graduate, dedicates himself to the art of music improvisation, focusing all his instructional work on the development of creativity. The method he crafted guides the student step by step towards a deep understanding of the instrument, its technical aspects, but also in the direction of liberating the inner musician within.
Chester teaches jazz improvisation in Paris and Rome, both online and offline. To reach him, you can send an email via his website.
Chester Harlan was born in Alassio where he spent the first years of his life in contact with figurative arts and cinema. He spent his childhood in Rome where he began studying piano, then moved to Paris, continued his high school studies and deepened his study of jazz guitar and improvisation with master improviser Pierre Cullaz. He studied at the American School of Modern Music and simultaneously attended the Faculty of Philosophy at the Sorbonne University in Paris. In 1994 he enters the Berklee College of Music in Boston, to deepen the study of composition and in 1997 he obtains a Bachelor's Degree. In the same year, he moved to Brooklyn (NY) where he continued to work on a musical material increasingly influenced by jazz, but with a strong link to the European harmonic tradition. With the album of compositions "Gardenias", recorded in Paris, Chester Harlan continued the development of composition and its melodic research, along with a strong interest in improvisation. In 2015 he collaborates with the “École des hautes études en sciences sociales” (EHESS) and the French anthropologist Richard Rechtman, composing music for solo classical guitar, for the project "Les Vivantes". In Italy, he collaborates as a composer and guitarist with the actor Giuseppe Cederna and later in Berlin with the great vibraphonist Oli Bott with whom he undertakes an intense concert activity. In 2019 he produces, in Rio de Janeiro, the album "Atlantika", by the Brazilian artist Carolina Sá. His great interest in improvisation and teaching also leads him to work on new concepts related to philosophy and psychoanalysis.
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
― Lao Tzu
I took classes for years with Chester, I made a lot of progress. His pedagogy is quite exciting and he really adapts to everyone.
Claude from Paris
I play guitar and came occasionally to a Brazilian jam in Global Music Academy in Berlin where my journey with Chester started. For one year we studied mainly Brazilian/Cabo-Verdian songs and guitar improvisation. His way of teaching was very constructive, relaxed and on a high instrumental level. If you want to dive deeper into improvisation and are looking for a good teacher, Chester is the right person. I am still sad that he left Berlin ;)