​I joined MTNA/CSMTA in 2011 when I moved to Colorado to pursue my master’s degree at the University of Colorado. I remember doing a poster presentation at the 2012 CSMTA state conference and connecting with Dr. Joan Sawyer there. In 2014, she asked me to consider being the Chair of Outreach, Education, and Public Relations. Then in 2016, I also took over the chair of the Rising Stars Festival, which I ran for three years. I thought it would be a great way to get to know the members of our organization, and it was! In 2018, I moved to the Vice President of Student Activities role, which I stepped down from in 2020 to focus on my own studio and teaching.
 
Even though it was a lot of work and a few days each year of high stress, I did love running the Rising Stars Festival. It allowed me to connect with a lot of people and see all the hard work being done by Colorado music students! I especially enjoyed traveling to Grand Junction for the Western Slope Preliminary and connecting with the amazing GJMTA. They are a wonderful, inspiring group of teachers!
 
I also enjoyed writing a feature for Notes and News called “Reaching Out” about the outreach activities going on across the state. I’m so proud to be part of an organization full of teachers who truly care about their work, their students, and their communities!
 
I’ve gotten the opportunity to present at local associations, at state conference, and national conference. I love learning about effective ways of teaching and sharing them with others. I’m now a part of the Broomfield Music Teachers Association, which I joined not too long before the pandemic--so I look forward to being able to have my students participate in their in-person events again in the future!
 
I divide my teaching time between Parlando School of Musical Arts, where I’ve worked for almost ten years, and my home studio in Erie. At Parlando, I’ve co-developed two classes with my fabulous colleague Courtney Bostwick called Women in Music and Untaught Music History, where we explored lesser known or unknown contributors to our field. In my own life and teaching, I’m working on de-centering the white, Eurocentric experience and seeking out ways to include the music of women and the music of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) composers and artists in my students’ and my own repertoire, and showing my students that classical music is not just a thing of the past, but is alive, well, and can be created by anyone.

When not teaching, I love to read, run, spend time with my amazing band-teacher husband, and practice :) I’m currently working on a project where I release one piece on Instagram each month from Nathan Hall’s 24 Preludes, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel’s Das Jahr, Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons, and my own musical cycle called This Year. It’s been good motivation to practice every day! I’m also in a duo called Chansonniers with my afore-mentioned colleague Courtney--we perform music by women composers from Baroque to Broadway and everything in between!