Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jeanne Hourez. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Jeanne, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

I started the piano when I was 6 years old and really loved it from the very beginning. My mother is a music teacher so we would listen to a lot of classical music at home, we would go to concerts, see operas, and any kind of musical related projects. As a young pianist, I was very lucky to grew up in a healthy environment: piano became serious very quickly, but I always had a choice to stop if I wanted and my teacher was a very kind person. I remember telling her, when I was about 9 or 10: “I don’t know if I’ll be a pianist later, but if it doesn’t work, I want to be an artist”. What I meant by this, I guess, if that I understood very early that I would need art in my life to exist.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Jeanne Hourez and I’m a French classical pianist. I have been performing since I’m 12, in Europe and North America. After studying in Paris and Montreal, I moved to the US, first in California and now in Texas. I’m currently a Doctorate candidate in Piano Performance at University of Texas at Austin. Besides my degree, I have been teaching for a dozen of years, and I’m a part-time collaborative pianist for the University of Mary-Hardin Baylor. Once I graduate, I hope to get a full-time teaching and collaborative position in a college.

Piano is a wonderful instrument because almost all the other instruments need it to play. In my collaborative job, I’m able to play for a lot of different instrumentalists and singers, and to discover unique personalities. As an artist, I think we grow up a lot by working with other artists, and this is why I absolutely love collaborating with others.

What I cherish about my job, (I don’t like that word, because, it is above all my passion), is to be able to make a difference: kids or adults, it is wonderful to notice the huge impact that art and music can make on someone. When I perform, teach or accompany, I always hope to bring some lightness in people’s lives. During a concert, I consider that I did my job correctly if I was able to bring comfort to one person in the audience.

I have been researching a lot about women composers in the last few years, with a special emphasis on French female composers from the Belle-Époque. I am very proud that I got to present several lectures in main musical conferences in the US. I also started to perform a lot of music by women and it has been extremely well received, which encourage me to keep digging in this astonishing repertoire.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

Very kind and caring people often come to me and say: “That’s wonderful that your job is your passion. It should be so easy to get up in the morning and practice.” Even though they don’t mean being inconsiderate, what they don’t know is that being a musician is a considerable amount of work: I started practicing between 5 and 8h a day when I was about 10-12 years old; until my 20s, I would not take holidays more than a couple of days in a row, otherwise I would have to find a piano to practice; there are a lot of sports that I cannot practice to avoid injuries; competitions are extremely hard and demanding… Music brings me so much that I never felt these choices were tough, but it is still worth it mentioning that it is not as easy as one can imagine. on the other side, I had many amazing memories that only music could have brought me.

It is also quite difficult to make a living with our art: sometimes, people have troubles understanding that my passion is also my job and I need to make money with it. I have been asked to play for free many times, supposedly because it’s “fun” and “easy”. But nobody would ask a barista to make a cocktail for free, or would go to a restaurant and expect to eat for free ;-)

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

I do think that classical music is not only reserved for the upper class of the society. I’m trying as much as I can to perform for different kinds of crowds – and the same happens for my teaching. I think it is important to keep working in that direction, to democratiza classical music and to bring it to the largest audience possible. When I perform, I try to communicate with the public, to present the pieces I’m performing to make them more understandable, and to spend time with people at the end to answer any questions they could have.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://jeannehourez.com/
• Instagram: jeannehourez_pianist
• Facebook: Jeanne Hourez Pianist
• Linkedin: Jeanne Hourez
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgGlWkmQNIfGH4f4HbwEGIQ