About us

Nora Tycast and Brian Lukkasson have taught together for 17 years, and have a combined tenure in the industry of over 40 years presenting, speaking and modernizing approaches to music education.  They serve a wide variety of students, most of whom do not take lessons and many who need additional encouragement to stay engaged.  They believe in teaching the whole musician, the community, and the individual. 

We believe that a strong curriculum, that includes all strands of the musician: Create, Respond/Critique,Understand, and Perform, makes for a better ensemble. Our ensembles perform more musically because they understand composition techniques, respond to their and other group performances, and have created compositions. We believe that all of our musicians can Create, Respond/Critique, Understand, and Perform musically, and your musicians can too!

We also believe that our students success is directly related the quality and consistency of scaffolding and coaching they receive in class.  We design purposeful and goal oriented assignments aimed at facilitating creative thought, collaboration and musical intent in the main areas of: music theory, melody writing, rhythm writing, harmony, composer’s intent and musical literacy

Nora Tycast is in her 20th year teaching and 15th year directing band at Spring Lake Park High School.  Nora received her Music Education degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and her Master’s Degree in Educational Policy and Administration from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.  

Her Master’s studies concentrated on identifying areas of inequity and lack of access to fine arts classrooms at the secondary level. Prior to teaching in Minnesota, Nora opened an arts-and-technology high school in Miami, Florida and marched with the Phantom Regiment drum and bugle corps. 

Nora enjoys traveling to anywhere warmer than Minnesota, logging significant miles in her athletic shoes, and cooking for her three daughters and husband.

Brian Lukkasson completed his 17th year of teaching at Spring Lake Park High School and is now the director of bands at The Blake School, in Minneapolis, MN. Brian received his Trombone Performance and Music Education degree from University of Minnesota, Morris. He received his Master’s in Music Education from the University of St. Thomas, with a concentration on bringing more diverse learners into traditional music classrooms. 

During his undergraduate career he spent time studying at the Conservatory of De Tatui in Brazil. Brian is an advocate and extremely passionate about jazz education and has previously sat on the founding board of a Minnesota jazz education foundation, and served as the MBDA 9-10 Jazz Honor Band chair.  

In his free time he trains competitively for a variety of long distance races, coaches cross country at the high school level and enjoys time with his wife and 2 daughters in Minneapolis.