Lauren Passarelli


Lauren "L. Pass." Passarelli is an American musician and educator.

Academic career

Passarelli's guitar studies began when she was nine years old. She studied for five years with Lou Sabini while growing up in Paramus, New Jersey, where she attended Paramus High School. Sabini told her about Berklee, informing her that even though she was eleven she was using college textbooks: A Modern Method for Guitar by William G. Leavitt.
Passarelli was the first woman to graduate from Berklee College of Music as a guitar performance major in 1982, and she became Berklee's first female guitar instructor in 1984 and the first woman to attain the rank of full professor
She attended Berklee with Melissa Etheridge, appearing in Etheridge's VH1 Behind The Music episode. Passarelli's fellow students included Makoto Ozone, Phil Person, Bob Zung, and Aimee Mann.
Passarelli was a featured Beatles expert on CBS Sunday Morning, celebrating fiftieth anniversary of The Beatles' appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.

Awards

January 18, 2017: Music and electronics technology company Soundwave Research awarded its “Good Song” prize to Passarelli for her song “Harry,, originally released on the album Honeywine on Feather Records.

Beatles tribute band

Passarelli played the role of George Harrison in The Beatles tribute band All Together Now. She has played with Leni Stern.
Some of Passarelli's students believe that her song "My Norwegian Friend", with its collage layered ending, from her CD Shadow Language, inspired The Beatles' album Love because Passarelli handed Giles Martin a cassette demo of "My Norwegian Friend" in the late 1990s.
Passarelli is a guitarist for the band Afterfab, a tribute band to the solo years of all four Beatles.

Other activities

Passarelli fronts for the progressive pop group Two Tru, which also features keyboardist Cindy Brown. She is a co-founder of Feather Records where she is responsible for engineering and production. Two Tru releases their music on Feather Records.
Passarelli has written books, including two about guitar technique and one about Dachsunds.
Passarelli was a consultant for the film Beatle Stories by Seth Swirsky.

Discography