Caton Sollenberger is a 7th semester student at Berklee College of Music, where he is enrolled in the degree program for Professional Music. Although a guitar player at Berklee, he was trained first on classical piano. Caton took lessons in his hometown of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania from a classical piano teacher who taught at Gettysburg College, named Mike Matsinko. Mike taught him from the age of 8, until Caton graduated from Gettysburg High School at 18.

It was also in Gettysburg that he started his first rock music project. “The Jackalopes” was Caton’s band from 2004 to 2008. With this group he primarily covered songs, and he played a lot of community benefit events in Gettysburg, such as Relay for Life, Lyme-Aid, and the New Years events for the town. They also played, and placed 1st twice, for their high school in various Battle of the Bands fundraisers. They were even chosen to be on their county television station for a “local talent” segment.

During high school, in addition to participating in the chorus band and orchestra programs at school, he also performed in the musical in 9th grade, and played guitar in the pit orchestra for the subsequent years.

Once graduated from Gettysburg Area High School, Caton did some international traveling, and then returned home to assume a full time job at Rice Fruit Company. This job was mostly outdoor farm work, on an orchard that Caton’s step father, John Rice co-owns with his brothers. He worked there from May 2009 until August 2010, which is when his education at Berklee began. In the first weeks of being at school he met Scott Ferber, a Berklee Alumni, and he became the drummer of his current musical project.

The Jauntee is a 4 piece improvisational rock band that Caton plays guitar, sings, and writes for. The Jauntee’s primary musical focus is to write a vast amount of original music and songs, and also be able to abandon the song structure and dive into extended improvisations. They strive to make each performance of each piece unique in some aspect. For this reason, live shows are a very crucial part of the band, so over the past year they have been putting all of their attention toward performing, and consistently presenting new material. They have played many venues in the area, most notably the Paradise Rock Club, and the Middle East. They have also played other cities in MA outside of Boston such as Beverly and Worcester.

They have recently finished their second tour, in promotion of their first album entitled Enjoy The Ride. The tour consisted of playing in 14 different cities over the course of 16 days. It was a smashing success, and they are already booking their summer tour, returning to many of the same venues, as to increase their following.

Caton plans on graduating from Berklee after the fall semester in 2013. From there, he hopes to continue playing music with The Jauntee, and continue to be inspired to create and play.