Sasha Markovic, Co-founder, Guitarist, Composer

Guitarist and composer, Sasha Markovic has been playing the guitar since the age of 13. His early love and passion for music has led him to become a professional guitarist, composer, arranger and producer. He took on an unique approach of learning guitar by trying to replicate the sounds from the vast variety of records he passionately collected and listened to, ranging from 70s rock, blues, jazz, to world music. This helped him quickly develop his musical ears, and inspire him to compose music from the age of 15.

As an active New York artist, his projects range from instrumental acoustic duets, producing, scoring for movies and theater to hard rock and blues bands. He is a founder leader of instrumental post rock chamber project Yagull. The latest albums “Films” and “Kai”(MoonJune Records) featuring his partner and wife pianist Kana Kamitsubo have earned him international recognition with over hundred excellent reviews from around the globe. Yagull is true New York project and features fantastic line up of musicians hailing from dozen different countries and was praised by such diverse publications like Time Out New York, Polish “Classical Music Magazine”, Progression Magazine (US), Acoustic Music (US).

As a guitar teacher, Mr. Markovic has been teaching guitar in New York for over 15 years. He believes that inspiring and fostering each individual’s creativity is the fundamental element of a learning process in music. He emphasizes the importance of understanding each student’s unique musical sensibilities in order to design lessons that motivate students and ignite their passion. Through his lessons, students explore and discover their own “Musical Self”.

What sets Mr. Markovic’s approach apart is the use of composition as a mean for students to grow their musical skills and musicianship. He believes that composition is a great way for self-expression and one can learn everything about music from this creative process. In his lesson, Mr. Markovic carefully observes his students’ musical strengths, progress, and preferences in order to spark their interest, foster motivation, and guide them to grow as musicians.

He refers to himself as a “mentor”, rather than a “teacher” because he believes his role is to awake every individual’s inner musical resource and nourish it. Over the years, Mr. Markovic has observed among his many students that once their creative Self is awoken, students joyously and actively participate and take charge in their learning process.

Mr. Markovic understands importance of having a music mentor and teacher, because his mentors widely influenced his musical growth by exposing him to beautifully diverse musical styles that still play essential role in his life as a musician, composer and teacher.

Yagull: www.yagull.com

The Sours: www.thesoursmusic.com