Our highly professional teaching faculty is made up of experienced and recognized producers and engineers, qualified teachers and accomplished academics. Our teachers are also skilled educators who are passionate about helping students develop their skills and achieve their goals. These professionals will offer you personalized instruction and feedback, working closely with all students to identify their strengths and weaknesses and help them improve and motivate and inspire. They are all active and focused experts in their field, keen to pass their wisdom and knowledge of the ever-changing music industry landscape onto you. Your teachers will be José Diogo Neves – studio mixing, studio recording and micro degree coordinator; Kelly Vask and Taavi-Peeter Liv – music production & songwriting teachers; Nikita Shishkov, Mait Visnapuu – introduction to music technology facilities and critical listening; Reelika Lelle, Liisi Voolaid and Liina Tammepõld – marketing & communications teachers. During each semester we will also provide one lesson workshops & masterclasses with guest lecturers.
José Diogo Neves
Studio Recording & Studio Mixing lecturer and the Micro-Degree coordinator
Hailing from Porto, Portugal and based in Tallinn, Estonia – Multi-award winning, Gold & Platinum awarded recording, mixing & mastering engineer José Diogo Neves has successfully transcended genres through working with a diverse array of artists, including Grammy & Latin Grammy award winning and nominated artists. José is a distinguished multi-faceted studio talent, and his work is renowned for having artistic integrity. José´s seemingly paradoxical passion for both electronic abstraction and acoustic purity has helped him to establish a unique position in the music scene today. His approach can be aggressive and extreme when needed, or completely transparent when appropriate. The stylistic diversity of his discography and his ability to combine the acoustic and electronic is a testament to his fluency across genres. José is officially endorsed by Universal Audio, Flock Audio, Vanguard Audio Labs, msonic Baltic & Retrosonic Pro Audio. Currently José is a Lecturer at the Estonian Academy of Music & Theatre, and for the past 11 years at the University of Tartu Viljandi Culture Academy. José has given numerous workshops & masterclasses in different universities and institutions around the world, including the United States of America, France, Italy, Spain, Finland, Latvia & Portugal.
Kelly Vask
Songwriting lecturer and co-coordinator
Kelly Vask is a singer, songwriter and a producer, based in Viljandi, Estonia. She started out as a high school girl singing her songs, accompanied with an acoustic guitar, then slowly turned into a band front-woman during her studies of rhythm music in Viljandi Culture Academy and then fell over-the-heels in love with music production in 2019, when she released her first pieces of music as a solo artist. She then studied music production in Georg Ots Music School. Kelly is in love with lyric writing and tying it with music to create one whole piece of art. Great, sincere and relatable stories can be told through songs, and intense emotions can be triggered – a good songwriter holds a great amount of power over their listeners.
Taavi-Peeter Liv
Music Production lecturer and co-coordinator
Taavi-Peeter Liiv is a songwriter, composer, and music producer. Liiv has produced music for artists such as Kitty Florentine (“Maladaptive Daydream,” EMA Alternative/Indie Album of the Year nominee), Rahel, EiK, and Marta Lotta Kukk. Additionally, Taavi-Peeter has released two albums – “Absurd” and “Skorpion” – and has worked as a composer for theatrical productions at Tallinn City Theatre, Kinoteater, Endla Theatre, and Ugala Theatre. As a producer, Taavi-Peeter describes his approach as follows: “In the studio, I value finding a common synergy between the artist and the producer. I want the artist to be receptive and confident in offering ideas – after all, we’re creating music for them! It’s also important to establish the structure of the song as quickly as possible: this creates a vision of the whole picture and maintains workflow.”
The Estonian Academy of Music & Theatre´s Music Production & Songwriting Micro-Degree has been created and designed in cooperation with the Composition and Improvisational Music Department and the Continuing Education Centre of EAMT.