Local Contact: For more information please contact Janet Smith.
Location: Zoom, for access please contact Susan Todd.
Presenting District: Central Oregon
Presenter: Jennifer Wright [expand title=”Read Presenter Bio” swaptitle=” “]Jennifer Wright, M.M., B.M., is a keyed-instruments performer, composer, educator, graphic artist, event producer and culture-maker. She is passionate about creating beautiful, thought-provoking cultural realities and memorable, multi-sensory performance experiences. Her work melds diverse artistic disciplines and expressions to create adventurous contexts that reshape the landscape of performative experience in order to engage, inspire, move, and change both the giver and the receiver for the better. Jennifer performs regularly as a solo and collaborative artist and has presented numerous concerts, master classes, and workshops in the U.S.A., the U.K., Europe, and Cuba.

Jennifer graduated summa cum laude from the Hartt School of Music in Hartford, CT with a Bachelor of Music in piano performance and studied for two years at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst and Universität Stuttgart in Germany. She was awarded several Distinctions for her Masters Degree achievements in performance and musicological research at the Trinity College of Music in London, England in the Historically Informed Piano Performance degree program.

Jennifer mischievously mixes experimental, visceral, and utterly listenable elements in an ever-evolving mix of her wide-ranging obsessions and curious whims, including repurposing pianos and other instruments, video art, found sound, alternative keyed instruments, sound sculptures, theatricality, trash instruments, the natural world, movement/dance, science, silliness, electronics, fashion, and live art-making. Much of her work focuses around her one-of-a-kind “Skeleton Piano,” an upright piano that she stripped of its exterior, altered mightily, and plays from the inside out with wild extended techniques and electronic modification.

Her compositions have been performed at the 29th and 31st Annual Festival de La Habana de Música Contemporánea in Cuba, the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival, The Astoria Music Festival, Portland International Piano Festival, Portland’s March Music Moderne festivals, Crazy Jane Composers and Cascadia Composers concerts, on KBOO, XRAY and KTCB radio, on KGW TV and Cuban National TV, by Portland’s Resonance Ensemble, the Free Marz String Trio, the Delgani Quartet, and in recitals in the U.S., England, and Finland.

More info available at jenniferwrightpianostudio.com and skeletonpiano.com.[/expand]
Program Description: Have you heard a “kind” instructor say that making mistakes is normal,[expand title=”Read More” swaptitle=” “]human, even a valuable part of the learning process? Or that striving for musical perfection is akin to being a lifeless robot and even creatively dangerous? Perhaps you heard a “tough love” teacher remark that you’re only as good as your last performance and that if you’re not perfect, you’re not even in the game?

Which perspective is the right one? Surprise: they all are – to a point! The secret is in the mix. This workshop shows how to reconcile these viewpoints into a joyous lifelong practice approach and gives you the tools and practice techniques to eliminate mistakes (and the terrible fear of mistakes) entirely from your playing. Let’s waste no time in giving this gift to ourselves and to our students!

In this workshop we’ll cover:
• Why do we make mistakes?
• What are you actually doing wrong? (Hint: it’s usually not what you think.)
• Practice techniques: the good, the bad, and the useless
• How to fix ingrained mistakes and habits
• The power of habits and human nature: you can fight them, or you can make them work for you…it’s your choice
• Tapping into your innate learning instincts for powerful progress
• Once you get it, it’s all fun and games!

Bring your “That’s impossible” stories, your “I’ve tried and I can’t” tales, your burning questions, and your overwhelming challenges with you – so we can knock them down one by one![/expand]