Lynn Riley has been on the faculty of Drexel University since 1999. Previously an adjunct professor, she is currently Assistant Teaching Professor of Music in the Performing Arts Department. She teaches World Musics, Intro to Music (Music Appreciation) and directs the Drexel Fusion Band. In addition to lecturing, she is director of a Community Based Learning practicum (PRFA 100), where she supervises Drexel students who teach free after-school music classes to children of the Mantua-Powelton community of Philadelphia.
Ms. Riley has also taught, Music Theory, Ear Training, Fundamentals of Music, Jazz Theory, Latin Music, Rock Ensemble, Saxophone, Flute, Clarinet, Jazz Improvisation, and has served as conductor of instrumental ensembles of several Drexel theatre productions. She has taught at the Goodwin Evening College, both on campus and in the Online Distance Learning Center, as well as in Drexel’s Online Degree Program.
As director of the Drexel Fusion Band, one of Drexel’s advanced performance ensembles, she has performed at Westphal College’s graduations, Drexel Alumni Days, Convocation, and the Berks Jazz Festival. She has written the arrangements for and produced 8 Drexel Fusion Band albums: All the Places In Between (2022), Tell Me Something Funky (2019), Tell Me Something Good (2018), Funk Out Front (2016), Black and Blue (2014), Comin’ Home Baby (2012), Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing, (2010), Cold Duck Sauce, Best of Drexel Fusion Band (2008).
From 2000-2010, Ms. Riley was the Director of the AMLA (Latin American Musician’s Association) Roots of Latin Jazz program, giving presentations to schools throughout the Philadelphia area. She has done master classes nationally and internationally, as well as adjudicated at Jazz Festivals.
Known as the “Superwoman of the Saxophone”, Ms. Riley has performed with David Murray, Johnny Pacheco, Grover Washington Jr., Philly Joe Jones, David Bromberg, Peter White, Rachelle Farrell, and Charles Earland, among others. She has performed at Lincoln Center-Outdoors and the Brooklyn Art Museum, NYC, the Kimmel Center and the Center City Jazz Festival, Philadelphia, the Getty Museum, Los Angles, the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts, Minneapolis, the Clifford Brown Jazz Festival, Wilmington, the Trenton Jazz Festival and the Mellon Jazz Festival, as well as internationally in Colombia, Bolivia, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Guadeloupe, South Africa, Ghana and Japan.
Ms. Riley has received a Trane Stop award for her contribution to preserving and promoting Afro-American classical music, the NAJE National Association of Jazz Educators award for Outstanding Service to Jazz Education, and a Window of Opportunity Grant from the Leeway Foundation. She has been on the Board of Directors of the Jazz Sanctuary, the Sedgwick Cultural Center, the Women’s Jazz Festival and was featured on the television show Good Day Philadelphia.