PENDLETON — The Umatilla-Morrow District of the Oregon Music Teachers Association, in partnership with the Oregon Community Foundation and the Nellie Tholen Fund, will present a free lecture for pianists, piano teachers and all who would be interested on Saturday, Feb. 6, from 10 a.m. to noon, presented by Jennifer Wright.

Entitled “Playing Perfectly: What It Takes to Practice and Perform Completely Without Mistakes (or Fear of Mistakes) — Yes, It’s Possible!” the lecture will be held via Zoom at https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82961743054. This lecture is free and open to the public; no preregistration, membership or fee is required.

The seminar will cover why musicians make mistakes; what musicians are actually doing wrong; practice techniques; how to fix ingrained mistakes and habits; the power of habits and human nature: fight them or make them work for you; and tapping into innate learning instincts for powerful progress.

Jennifer Wright is a pianist, teacher, composer, graphic artist and passionate aficionada of the creative life. She holds two degrees in piano performance (BM, The Hartt School of Music, Hartford, CT; MM, Trinity College of Music, London, England) and studied for two years at the Stuttgart Music Conservatory in Germany.

An active solo and collaborative performer, presenter, and event producer, Wright has presented numerous adventurous performance events, workshops and lectures in the U.S., the U.K., Europe and Cuba. Much of her recent work focuses around alternative keyed instruments, including typewriters, toy pianos, amplified harpsichord, and her one-of-a-kind creation “The Skeleton Piano”: an upright piano that she stripped of its exterior cladding, altered mightily, and plays from the inside out with a variety of wild extended techniques and electronic modification.

Wright’s compositions have been performed at the Portland International Piano Festival, the March Music Moderne festival, Crazy Jane Composers concerts, Portland’s “Art for the Ears” series, Cascadia Composers concerts, in collaboration with Agnieszka Laska Dancers, filmmaker Takafumi Uehara, and XX Digitus (among others), and in recitals in the U.S., England, and the Karjalohja Summer Series in Finland. In November 2016, she performed her compositions with Cuban musicians in the 29th Annual Contemporary Music Festival in Havana as part of the first-ever USA/Cuba composer exchange. 

Wright has served on the Cascadia Composers Board of Directors and is one-third of the intrepid female composer/performer trio “Burn After Listening.”

The Oregon Music Teachers Association (OMTA) is dedicated to fostering excellence in music education, striving to develop productive relationships with schools, organizations, businesses and the media to promote music everywhere. The association seeks to elevate the status of the private music teacher and to encourage and recognize student achievement in music. Members are the concert artists of today and tomorrow, faculty members of fine music schools, and the private music teachers who build the foundation of America’s music scene.

OMTA is an affiliate of the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA), the oldest professional music teachers association in the United States. For more information, or to contact someone in your area, go to www.oregonmta.org.