Goussy Célestin

Goussy Célestin

Professor
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Haitian-American artist Goussy Célestin is a pianist, composer, arranger, vocalist, and dancer with a decades-long career of engaging audiences globally. Célestin's personal mission is to stir up all of her musical influences into a moving experience, incorporating jazz elements and dance influences. 

She has studied and performed music and dance with such esteemed names as Ron Carter, Jimmy Heath, C. Scoby Stroman, Max Roach, Donald Byrd, Barry Harris, and Sheila Jordan as a jazz pianist-vocalist, while studying with Pat Hall, Jean Leon Destiné, and Camille Yarbrough as a dancer. She’s been a featured vocalist for Rattlestick Theater, and has led workshops at the Metropolitan Opera's 2019 National Educators Conference, The Mile Long Opera, and Met Opera's Global Summer Camp. She has also led music workshops at Bobby McFerrin’s CircleSongs School and currently is a senior manager for jazz at the Lincoln Center's WeBop program. 

Célestin is an alum of ASE Dance Theater Collective, a neo-folklore ensemble dedicated to the traditional/contemporary arts of the African Diaspora filtered through Haitian music and dance. While in Cuba, she had the honor of performing with members of the Buena Vista Social Club, as well as performing/mentoring with members of Grupo AfroCuba de Matanzas, Yoruba Andabo, and Clave Y Guaguanco. She has performed at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center, Del Terzo Studio at Carnegie Hall, Symphony Space, SOB's, the Knitting Factory, NJPAC, Tilles Center, Newark Symphony Space, and Joe's Pub, as well as various jazz clubs in New York City. Goussy's musical travels include Japan, England, Wales, Cuba, the British Virgin Islands, and Haiti, as well as touring parts of the US.

Her current project, Goussy Célestin’s Ayiti Brass is an eight-member ensemble that incorporates sound and movement, inspired by New Orleans’ second-line and Haiti’s Rara and African-American jazz traditions.

Career Highlights
  • Premiered KongoNola Project at Inaugural Nomad Jazz Festival, 2025
  • Off Broadway credits: Novenas for a Lost Hospital; City of No Illusion; How We Are Connected
  • Performed at the sixth-annual Jazz on the Hill, as well as the British Virgin Islands Jazz Festival and Festival Internationale du Jazz in Port-Au-Prince
  • Studied and performed with Barry Harris, Bobby McFerrin, Jimmy Heath, and Jon Hicks
Awards
  • Brooklyn Conservatory of Music—Jazz Leaders Fellowship, 2024
  • Berklee NYC Faculty Recording Grant, 2023
  • NYC Women's Fund, 2023
  • New York State Council on the Arts Support for Artists, 2023
  • American Composers Forum, Innova Records Spring National Call, 2022
  • Laundromat Project, Create Change Fellow, 2017
  • Queens Council on the Arts, New Work Grant, 2017
  • Gardarev Resident Artist Fellow, 2016
  • Field Leadership Artist Fellow, 2015–2017
In Their Own Words

"My hope is for students to feel free within the forms and structures they are creating in. To remain open to possibilities and to keenly develop their collaborative skills through listening, play and improvisation."

"As a composer, I think in terms of structure—how small units develop and layer into something coherent over time. That instinct shapes how I teach: I use circlesongs, in the tradition of Bobby McFerrin, as a core tool. Students layer simple vocal and rhythmic parts on top of each other with no written score—each person has to listen to what's already happening in the room and find where their voice fits, the same way a jazz musician comps behind a soloist. This does something a written exercise can't: It forces real-time collaboration without the safety net of a script. Students who are used to waiting for the "right answer" have to instead trust their ear, take a risk, and adjust based on what the group is doing—the same muscle they'll need for improvisation, ensemble playing, and honestly, most creative work.

I pair this with collaborative games and open improvisation exercises for the same reason: They build a classroom culture where creativity is something you find with other people in the moment, not something you produce alone and present for approval. As a dancer, I bring an embodied approach to this work—rhythm and phrasing aren't just heard, they're felt in the body, which reaches students who don't fully absorb a concept until they've moved through it. My classroom becomes a space to build skills like active listening, risk tolerance, ensemble trust, and creative confidence—the same qualities that make a jazz band work, where every player is an equal collaborator, freely expressing their voice while listening to contribute, improvising within a shared framework.

I use this same principle when staging a scene or choreographing a piece: The structure holds, but nobody's parts are fixed in advance. As an educator, this is the through-line across all my disciplines—I don't teach music, theater, and dance as separate subjects with separate rules. I teach one underlying practice: Build a strong enough structure that people can take real risks inside it, and trust that the group, not just the individual, is where the learning actually happens."