Originally from Brooklyn, NY, Paul Tomashefsky received his bachelor’s degree in music education from the Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA. He was Director of the Bentley University Jazz Ensemble in Waltham, MA from 1985 until 1996. During that time, he initiated an intercollegiate jazz exchange program between the Berklee, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston University, Harvard University and Worcester Polytechnic Institute jazz departments. Tomashefsky has been on faculty of the Westborough Public Schools Fine Arts/Music Department since 1989. Before moving to Central Massachusetts, he held teaching positions in the East Boston, Newton, Malden, Duxbury, Wellesley and Dedham public school systems.
As a performer, Tomashefsky has been a Yamaha Performing Artist since 1988. He is active as a freelance performer with such groups as the Fantasy Big Band, Jerry Bennett's Sultans of Swing and Double Take Jazz Combo. He has previously performed and recorded with Jordan Valentine & the Sunday Saints, A Decade of Soul, Quintessential Brass, Bobby Rydell, The Four Tops, Jacques d’Amboise and the National Dance Institute, Harvard University's Hasty Pudding Theatricals and his own Spectrum Jazz Quintet. Tomashefsky’s publishing credits as a visual artist include the design of several book covers for Charles Colin Publications and composer/arranger David Berger in New York City and a commissioned portrait of jazz bassist Charles Mingus for WMJX radio in Boston.
Tomashefsky teaches at Mill Pond Elementary School as an instrumental band director. He is the recipient of multiple Westborough Education Foundation teaching grants for programs entitled "Music Notation in the Next Millennium" (1996) and "Journey into Jazz" (2001), an after school program that encourages fifth and sixth grade band students to explore and perform music from various jazz periods and styles. He was previously the recipient of an invitation from Queens College to help develop curriculum materials for the Louis Armstrong Education Center in Corona, Queens, NY.
Tomashefsky is honored and a privileged to work with students in a community that recognizes art, music, dance and drama as part of its core curriculum. While not busy teaching or performing, Tomashefsky enjoys spending time with his family at the beach in York Harbor, ME.
