Take Five With Andrea Wolper

Meet Andrea Wolper: Jazz / improvising vocalist and songwriter. Leads her own groups performing her arrangements of originals, standards, and music from other sources. Also part of TranceFormation with Connie Crothers and Ken Filiano, and Objects in Mirror, with Adam Caine, Fung Chern Hwei, and Ken Yamazaki.

Instrument(s):

Voice.

Your sound and approach to music:

My approach is to embrace, as much as possible, whatever music I'm drawn to, without judgment...to be as generous as I can...to get inside the experience of making music with other people...to leave plenty of room for not knowing what will happen next...to always run towards what a joy it is to make music.

Your teaching approach:

Work hard, and leave plenty of room for laughter. Explore the relationship between technical knowledge/ skill and spontaneity/creativity, remembering that all these complement one another, and technique is at the service of expression.

The first Jazz album I bought was:

Well, there wasn't exactly any money exchanged. I "liberated" two Ella Fitzgerald Albums (...In Berlin and Cole Porter Songbook) from my parents when I left for college. And then I listened to them both so much that my head exploded and I couldn't listen to either of those albums for a number of years.

Did you know...

I earned a black belt in Karate.

If I weren't a jazz musician, I would be a:

I'd probably be working at a non-profit doing human rights work.

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