Piano Instructor

Emily Jennings is a pianist and teacher from South Jersey, just outside of Philadelphia. When she was 8, she asked her parents to sign her up for drawing and ballet classes; they agreed on the condition that she also give piano lessons a try. By the end of the year, piano was the activity she stuck with. Since then, Emily has performed in numerous recitals, competitions, and festivals, including the Rome Festival in Rome, Italy. She developed a passion for performing and studying the classics and received praise for her emotional and thoughtful playing.

Emily received her Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance and Pedagogy from Temple University in 2011, where she studied Classical performance under Alexander Fiorillo, Maria del Pico Taylor, and Clipper Erickson. Toward the end of her degree, she discovered a deep love for teaching and a reverence for the effect an instructor can have on someone’s life. She went on to study the Suzuki method with Joan Krzywicki and Caroline Fraser, as well as the Taubman approach to piano technique with Maria del Pico Taylor and Maria Hubler. On the East Coast, she was on the faculty of Temple Music Prep in Philadelphia and the Moorestown School of Music in Moorestown, NJ, where she taught mainly using the Suzuki method.

Since moving to Portland in 2015, Emily has branched out, arranging music for her students and mentoring new teachers. She believes that no music should be off-limits, and that there’s an opportunity to learn from any genre. She also loves finding fun ways to incorporate music theory and history into her lessons, encouraging and challenging her students to look beyond the notes on the page. When not teaching, Emily enjoys writing and drawing, being in the kitchen or garden, going on long walks, and sharing good meals and conversation with friends and family. She lives in Southeast Portland with her husband, baker and blogger Matt Strenger, and their adorable black cat, Cleo.