"Better than a thousand days of diligent study is one day with a great teacher."
-Japanese Proverb
Our Team
WRITING: POETRY, MASTER INSTRUCTOR
Billy Collins
Billy Collins is one of the most widely read and beloved poets in the United States. Known for his clarity, wit, and conversational voice, his poems invite readers into moments of everyday life that open onto humor, surprise, and quiet reflection. He served as United States Poet Laureate from 2001 to 2003 and as New York State Poet from 2004 to 2006, roles in which he became a leading advocate for poetry as a living, accessible art. The author of numerous acclaimed collections, Billy Collins has received multiple honors for his contributions to American letters and is celebrated for bringing poetry to broad audiences without sacrificing depth, intelligence, or craft.
Billy Collins has published thirteen collections of poetry, including Questions About Angels, The Art of Drowning, Sailing Alone Around the Room: New & Selected Poems, Nine Horses, The Trouble With Poetry and Other Poems, Ballistics, Horoscopes for the Dead, and Picnic, Lightning. His books Aimless Love: New and Selected Poems 2003 – 2013, The Rain in Portugal, Whale Day And Other Poems, Musical Tables and Water, Water were New York Times bestsellers. A collection of his haiku, She Was Just Seventeen, was published by Modern Haiku Press in fall 2006. He has also published two chapbooks, Video Poems and Pokerface. In addition, he has edited two anthologies of contemporary poetry: Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry and 180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Every Day, was the guest editor of The Best American Poetry 2006, and edited Bright Wings: An Illustrated Anthology of Poems about Birds, illustrated by David Allen Sibley.
Photo: Laura Wilson
MUSIC COMPOSITION, IMPROVISATION, PERFORMANCE
Bruce Adolphe
Bruce Adolphe is a celebrated composer and educator known for his ability to unlock the inner architecture of music through story, humor, and deep insight. Best known to many as the creator and voice of NPR’s Piano Puzzler, Adolphe has spent decades bridging the worlds of classical tradition and contemporary exploration.
His works have been performed by leading ensembles around the world, including the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, where he serves as Resident Lecturer and Director of Education. Adolphe’s compositions range from virtuosic chamber works to large-scale choral and orchestral pieces, many inspired by science, literature, and human rights.
At Acenturi, Bruce will guide musicians and composers through an intimate, transformative process — focusing not only on technique and interpretation, but on creative identity and musical imagination. Whether improvising, analyzing, or composing anew, participants are invited to rediscover music as an expressive language that evolves with the self.
"To work with Bruce is to enter a dialogue with music itself — humorous, searching, alive."
Photo by Yumiko Izu
PAINTING, MASTER INSTRUCTOR
Daniel Graves
Daniel Graves is an American painter of international renown and the founder of the Florence Academy of Art, one of the world’s leading institutions for classical drawing and painting. Trained at the Maryland Institute College of Art and the Villa Schifanoia Graduate School of Fine Art, Graves has dedicated his life to the revival of rigor, beauty, and purpose in contemporary figurative art.
His work, which spans portraiture, still life, and landscape, reflects a devotion to mastery of form and light — while remaining deeply personal in tone and spirit. As an educator, Graves is revered for his rare ability to teach not just how to paint, but how to see.
At Acenturi, Daniel invites painters into a focused, deeply rewarding environment where observation becomes revelation. Working in the studio and the landscape, participants will receive individual mentorship and critical dialogue aimed at elevating both skill and vision.
"Daniel doesn’t teach style. He teaches you to see what’s truly there — and what you’re capable of."
Self-Portrait by Daniel Graves, “Surviving Abstract Art.”
FOUNDER
John Ockerbloom
John Ockerbloom is the recently retired Managing Director and Head of U.S. & European Real Estate at Barings, leading the development of the U.S. and European real estate business strategies across investment vehicles, asset classes and geographies. In addition, he served as Co-Chair of the Barings Real Estate U.S. Equity Investment Committee and was a member of the Barings Global Real Estate Debt U.S. Investment Committee and Affordable Housing Investment Committee. He has worked in the industry since 1997.
Prior to joining the firm in 2019, John served as Managing Director and Global Head of Real Estate, Gaming & Lodging at Jefferies, where he founded the firm’s real estate investment banking business. Prior to Jefferies, John held leadership positions in real estate investment banking with Morgan Keegan & Company, Wachovia Securities and Bank of America Securities. Prior to banking, he worked as an attorney in a private practice. John earned his B.A. from Westfield State College in Massachusetts and a J.D. at Northeastern University School of Law.
John is a dedicated musician and composer, attending The Swananoa Gathering and hosting artist showcases in private salons in Charlotte, North Carolina.
FOUNDER, DIRECTOR
Nick Raposo
Nick Raposo is an award winning painter, writer and music educator. He won the prestigious Schaefer Emerging Artist award at the Mystic International Marine Art Exhibition in 2019 and is a three-time Emmy Award nominee for his television writing. He has been a music education consultant to the Music-in-Education Research Center at the New England Conservatory, the Minnesota Orchestra, and the Learning Through Music consulting group with the late Kenneth Freed. He also serves private clients as a writing coach. He is the founder and director of the Center for American Marine Art, a past-president of the American Society of Marine Artists, and served as an editor and publisher at Yale University Press, where he oversaw Walter Lacquer’s Holocaust Encyclopedia, The Yale Series of Younger Poets and the publication of Shepard Sherbell’s “Soviets.” Nick worked at McKinsey & Co. after graduating from Harvard College where he studied Renaissance Non-Dramatic Poetry with Helen Vendler and Seamus Heaney and was an officer of the Signet Society as a poet and musician. Nick manages his family’s music publishing business when he’s not painting.
Photo by Eric Korenman
