Jennifer Wright, M.M., B.M., is a pianist, multi-faceted performer, composer, educator, graphic artist, event producer and culture-maker. She teaches piano at Reed College, Portland State University College of the Arts, and in her award-winning private studio in Portland, Oregon.
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 is passionate about creating boundary-warping, memorable, multi-sensory performance experiences. Her work melds diverse artistic disciplines, narrative modes, and creative expressions to create adventurous contexts with the intention of engaging, inspiring, moving, and changing both giver and receiver for the better. Jennifer performs regularly as a solo and collaborative artist and has presented numerous large-scale productions, concerts, master classes, and workshops in the U.S.A., the U.K., Europe, and Cuba.
Jennifer's artistic practice mixes a wide range of core elements into an eclectic practice centered around transformative storytelling, social and environmental issues, and experimental exploration. Major areas of work include repurposing pianos and other instruments, video art, found sound, alternative keyed instruments (including harpsichord, toy piano, and hand-built original analog instruments), sound sculptures, theatricality, trash instruments, the natural world, movement/dance, humor, sound-capable fashion, and improvisation. Primary areas of innovation are her one-of-a-kind “Skeleton Piano”, an upright piano that she stripped of its exterior and plays from the inside out, and her fleet of “Post-Apocalyptic Instruments”, a wild range of large-scale instruments made of trash and that explore realities of climate change and unsustainable human wastefulness.
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 2020 and 2023 New Music Gathering Festivals, The Astoria Music Festival, Portland International Piano Festival, Portland’s March Music Moderne festivals, Crazy Jane Composers and Cascadia Composers concerts, the Eugene Difficult Music Ensemble (EDME) 2023 New Music Festival, on KBOO, XRAY and KTCB radio, on KGW TV and Cuban National TV, and in concerts and dance performances in the U.S., England, and Finland. In 2022-24, Jennifer has been an Artist in Residence at the Zidell Shipyards with ProLab Dance, co-producing and composing the music for the ground-breaking “Break to Build” shows featuring site-specific sound installations that she built from over two tons of industrial metal debris.
Jennifer has collaborated with artists such as the Venerable Showers of Beauty Gamelan Orchestra, ProLab Dance, VR filmmakers Hungry Mantis, Heidi Duckler Dance Theater Northwest, Ensemble Interactivo de la Habana, filmmaker Takafumi Uehara, aerialist Jordie Campbell, Agnieszka Laska Dancers, sculptor Melita Westerlund, 20 Digitus piano duo, artists Bonnie Meltzer, Ree Nancarrow, and Susan Campbell, and the Delgani Quartet, among others. Jennifer serves on the board of directors of ProLab Dance Works and Heidi Duckler Dance Theater NW.