When Jazz band player Austin Spinner met his idol, Jacob Collier, he was not starstruck or nervous. Instead, he stayed cool, calm, and collected and focused on learning as much as possible in the five days he got to spend with him.
“To him, it was about wanting to know more about what’s going on in his brain,” Austin’s dad Brian Spinner said. “He’s almost like, hey, my plan is to become one of your peers someday.”
Sophomore Austin Spinner attended the Hideaway music retreat last August in New York led by famous musician Jacob Collier to improve his music abilities and increase his creative output by learning from a seven time Grammy winning Musician.
“I think my process is now more streamlined than before the retreat. I don’t get stuck anymore,” Sophomore Austin Spinner said. “I feel like I’m more open to new and unique things that I may have not explored before him.”
Last year, Austin Spinner became the first Freshman in the school’s history to make Varsity Jazz Band. This year, Austin plans on taking his newfound passion for creativity that he learned from the retreat to help the band make a push for state.
“The biggest focus of the week was creativity. It’s not having limitless possibilities, but limiting yourself and making the most of that space,” Spinner said. “I’m usually looking so far out, but when you have everything you need on the table, you can flow.”
Jacob Collier is a singer and instrumentalist with 1.8 million monthly listeners on Spotify and is widely known for pushing the boundaries of jazz music. Collier was most recently nominated for the 2024 Album of the Year with his album Djesse Vol. 4.
“Every time he starts a performance, he gets the audience engaged right away,” Spinner said. “He does these back and forth home response activities. It might be the singing or clapping, but it gets the energy up and just builds the excitement.”
The daily schedule at the retreat featured two main classes led by Jacob Collier each day. Along with this, Jacob brought in a whole faculty of other musicians whom he thought had the same creative touch as him, allowing the participants to sign up for the classes they wanted to and allowing time for smaller, more intimate groups.
“I would typically drop him off at 9:30 in the morning and pick him up at 1:00 am. He was always really excited at the end of the day,” Brian Spinner said. “I think the highlight was getting to see behind the curtain of what goes into a creative genius.”
The retreat lasted for four days, from Monday to Thursday on the week of August 11th. Austin was one of around 200 participants from all across the world.
“He’s unique in that he has the natural ability to do something that other people can’t do, which is the pure perfect pitch,” Brian Spinner said. “What differentiates him is his genuine interest in it, and his commitment to his craft, because he literally plays every single day.”
