Mike Shellans

Mike Shellans is a professional performer and music educator in the Phoenix area, joining the School of Music in 1985. Shellans received his B.M. in Jazz and Contemporary Media from the University of Arizona in 1979, and his M.M. in Trombone Performance from Arizona State University in 1990. Currently a Senior Lecturer at Arizona State University, Shellans has also taught at Phoenix College, Glendale Community College, Paradise Valley Community College and Grand Canyon University.

Shellans has played both piano and trombone since the age of nine, and started working professionally while in high school. Shellans has performed on piano or trombone with a wide variety of entertainers, including Bob Hope, The Moody Blues, Henry Mancini, Sammy Davis Jr., George Burns, The Temptations, Wayne Newton, Liberace, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, The Four Tops, Gladys Knight, Natalie Cole and The O’Jays. He has also played in pit orchestras for musicals such as Annie, 42nd Street, The Sound of Music, Chorus Line, Zorba the Greek, Camelot, Jesus Christ, Superstar, Damn Yankees, Oklahoma and West Side Story.

As a senior lecturer at ASU, Shellans has taught 15 different courses to more than 100,000 students, including Jazz in America, Popular Music/Rock, Concert Jazz Band, Jazz/Rock Ensemble, Jazz Fundamentals, Jazz Combo, Modern Arranging, Jazz Improvisation, Contemporary Music and Society, Jazz Piano and Jazz Styles and Analysis.  Shellans helped design and currently teaches Beatles, The Beatles After the Beatles, Blues to Heavy Metal, Elvis and Women Who Rock, fully online courses with an annual enrollment of more than 3,600 students.  

For more than twenty years, Shellans was involved as a clinician and adjudicator with the Arizona Music Educators Association and the Arizona Band and Orchestra Directors Association, serving as head judge for the All-State High School Jazz Band Festivals and as a visiting clinician at local high schools. In 1997, Shellans co-authored the book "Here To Stay: Rock and Roll Through the ’70s", and his second text, "Who is the Greatest: Elvis or the Beatles?" is available through the ASU Bookstore and Barnes and Noble.