I’m someone who wants to share my music with the world.

Who do you want to reach?

• I want my music to reach people who can connect with it. My harp music has a medieval feel. If you’re looking for something a little different, something that transports you to another place and time, you may enjoy this work. Many of my songs have to do relationships—relationships with others, relationship with self, relationship with God and the interconnection of others, self, and God. I’ve found these songs to be very therapeutic, and I hope others may find them helpful too.

Where is Jill from (Born and Raised)?

• I was born and raised in the Mid-West, I’m a Kansas girl at heart. Kansas has a subtle beauty to it – whether it’s the sun breaking through the clouds during the late afternoon or a thunderstorm that fills the horizon with lightening. The prairie is an ocean, with the wind whipping the grass into waves. But what I most remember is the sense of community. You knew your neighbors and took care of each other.

Who inspired you? Who influenced you?  

• My middle school and high school youth pastors, Jon Black and Brian Frable, both had a huge influence on my life. Brian taught me how to play in a band, which is actually a pretty good metaphor for life—learning how to use your gifts as part of a team, an integral part of a whole that is much larger than you. The whole would not be complete without you, but you are not the center and must learn how to lay out and play with others.

Why do you love music? / When did it become your passion?

• I’ve loved to sit at the piano and create since I was a little girl. In high school, I learned how to play off of chords, which opened up a new creative world for me.  As an adult, music has allowed me to process my grief and express what I can’t express any other way. Music for me is the purest form of prayer.

When did your love start? / How long have you been playing?

• I’ve been playing piano since I was 7 and harp since college. In high school and college, I was also classically trained in voice. I started playing piano because my big brother played, but my mother warned me that if I started lessons, I would have to continue at least through middle school. That led to a huge battle of wills on more than one occasion, but fortunately for me, my mom made me stick with it. Finally in high school, I started to make piano my own, continuing with a piano performance degree in college. During that time, I gained enough mastery of the instrument that I was able to express my thoughts and feelings, joys and frustrations, through the medium of music. I loved being able to express myself that way. That love started as a girl and continues to this day.

What do you play?

• Piano, harp, hand drums (djembe, dubek, cajón), guitar, voice

Genre – what genre do you play? What’s your favorite?

• I have eclectic tastes. I play folk and original songs with a medieval flavor. My piano-based songs tend to be in the pop genre. Although I didn’t grow up listening to funk and blues, I really enjoy those genres.

What musicians did you love growing up?  (90’s alternative)

• I grew up on 90’s alternative songs, as well as Christain music (Rich Mullins, Michael W Smith, Amy Grant, DC talk, Jars of Clay)

When did following Christ become important to you?

• I grew up going to church in a Christian family. It didn’t become personal for me until after 3^rd grade, when I found I wanted to make a change in my life and couldn’t do it by myself. That’s when it became real—when I had to ask God for help. He showed up. And He still does.