Mark Neslusan & Friends

Mark Neslusan grew up in Oxford, Massachusetts, and began playing clarinet at age nine in 1971. He graduated from the University of Massachusetts at Lowell with a bachelor’s degree in Music Education and Composition in 1985. After attending the University of Texas at Austin, where he did graduate work in musical composition, he began teaching music in Bucksport in 1986 and has taught there for the past 38 years. In addition to directing the band, jazz bands, and choirs, he has performed jazz professionally for over 25 years as a clarinetist and bassist.

Brandon Kelley, a native of Bucksport, began studying guitar with Mark in 2015 when he was a sophomore at Bucksport High School. He has played jazz guitar professionally since 2016 and has performed throughout Maine. He received a Bachelor’s of Music from the University of Maine at Augusta.

Nina Emery will be a senior at Bucksport High School next year. She has twice been selected to sing with the Maine All State Jazz Choir. This year, she was the highest-rated singer in the state. Nina played trumpet and sang with Bucksport High School’s Gold Medal winning jazz combo and has earned a “Top 5 Musician” Award for the past two years at the Maine State High School Instrumental Jazz Festival. This summer, she will participate in a five-week Jazz Study program at Berklee Collegeof Music in Boston.