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About Kelly

I am a teacher and performer with over two decades of experience in transformative music education. With a unique background in music and women studies, I am committed to driving gender and racial equity forward through music, from the beginning classroom to the professional stage. Join me in reimagining music education that links artistic excellence to empowerment and social justice.

"Thanks for everything you bring to your students and to this music program. Your humor, your enthusiasm, your ability to believe in them and relate to them, to take them seriously without being 'serious'. My daughter's middle school experience was you and music at WMS-everything else was waiting. I am pretty certain you have changed the course of her life"

- Washington Middle School music parent

"Being a part of the Girls Ellington Project has really inspired me to be a stronger musician as well as a stronger woman – 
to not take crap from anyone who says I can't do something and to put all of myself into my music because that's what really makes it music."
                                             -JazzED student

"You have such a fresh approach.  You’re direct and unapologetic and yet you bring everyone along with your good humor." -Laurie de Koch
                     founder Seattle JazzED

Career highlights

 

Speaker, Central Washington University Women in Jazz Day, 2024 & 2018.

Adjudicator, Oregon State Jazz Championships, Mt. Hood Community College, 2024.

Curator, Jazz Reading Session, Washington Music Educators Association, Yakima, WA, 2024.

Earshot Jazz Board Member, 2023-present.

Eclectic Strings Committee Member, American String Teachers Association, 2021.

Labor of Love: Art and Healing Grant recipient, MLK Labor & Washington State Labor Council, 2021.

Jazz Curriculum Officer, Washington Music Educators Association, 2020-2021.

Essentially Ellington Finalist, Seattle JazzED Ellington Ensemble, 2020.

 

Jazz Educator of the Year, Seattle Women in Jazz, 2018.

Director, EBMEA High School Orchestra Festival, 2018.

 

Expanding Opportunities to Learn Jazz in Afterschool Taskforce, Jazz at Lincoln Center, 2018.

Director, Washoe County Middle School Honor Band, 2017.

Alumni Award, University of Washington Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies, 2016.

 

Eclectic Styles Reading Session Conductor, American String Teachers Association, 2016.

Plenary Speaker, Montana Music Educators Association, Billings, MT, 2016.

Lead Writer/Piloter of the Seattle Public Schools Common Curriculum and Assessments in Secondary Music, 2016.

 

Professional experience

2016-2024

Education Director, Seattle JazzED,

Seattle, WA

 

2012-2023

Director, Girls Ellington Project and Girls Jazz Day, Seattle JazzED,

Seattle, WA

2008-2016

Director of Bands, concert and jazz, Washington Middle School,

Seattle, WA

 

2004-2007

K-8 general music, choir, musical theater director,

St. Patrick School, Rodeo, CA and St. David School, Richmond, CA

Education

1997-2004

Bachelor of Music, Bachelor of Trombone Performance, Bachelor of Women Studies

Teaching Certification

Senior Thesis of the Year "An Exploration of Women's Jazz: Community Building and Empowerment" (New Girls on the Block)

University of Washington, Seattle, WA

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