We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Mary Petrich. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Mary below.

Mary, appreciate you joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

All of my musical and education projects are meaningful and I am grateful to have the opportunities to continue to expand and grow as a creative improviser and educator. My quartet OpenHand is a special group devoted to playing creative music. Together for almost ten years, we have developed ways of collaborating that results in inventive music-making. We are interested in navigating the unknown! As an educator, I am very involved in The Nash’s education program including being on faculty at the Nash jazz summer camp as well as teaching an all-female youth jazz ensemble. As creative director of the Nash Women’s Initiative, we are creating performance opportunities for women-led jazz groups, as well as supporting young women in jazz.. To that end, I am performing a series of Duke Ellington Tribute concerts with pianist Beth Lederman and trumpeter Louise Baranger,. Upcoming is a project “Birth of the Cool”, led by trumpeter Louise Baranger.

Another part of leading the Women’s Initiative is celebrating women composers.

Mary, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I have always loved music, especially the saxophone and its repertoire. I picked it up at age twelve and have not put it down. My early training and college degrees are in classical saxophone. However, in my 30’s, I began to be drawn to the freedom of expression offered by jazz. What interests me most is practicing and learning, so that in whatever situation I am playing in, I am able to express musical ideas at that moment in time. I want to go as deep as possible in myself and in the music. Creatively, I want to be able to trust whatever comes out of my instrument and follow that creativity without hesitation or fear.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

My love for creative music is what drives my journey.
I’ve always believed that my creative journey and spiritual journey are one and the same.
That is, striving to go deep into myself to find out who I am, and find out how I navigate the unknown, I also want to support this potential in others.
Music and improvsation are really vehicles for expression and originality.
The great saxophonist Wayne Shorter talks about the gift of originality as being the best gift we can give to others and to the universe.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

Relationship- building. Although I have never felt it my strength to market or advertise, I know that it is essential that as artists we must do our part in building an audience. I am learning to build relationships by doing whatever behind-the-scenes work it takes; to invite, post, advertise, inform, talk to others to build that audience.

Mingling with the audience before concerts and during intermissions is a way to let them know how much I appreciate them being there. The time to do this is limited, but I am learning how to convey warmth, directness and sincerity in the few moments I have to interact.

It’s a real art to be able to do that!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://marypetrich.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mary.petrich.5