Energetic and insightful, Jennifer King is a versatile pianist who is equally at home on the concert stage, and in the classroom. She is also in high demand as an adjudicator, coach, and clinician; she has firmly established herself as a sought-after talent across Atlantic Canada.

Jennifer worked at Acadia University’s School of Music as the staff accompanist, a part-time piano instructor and faculty member from 2003-2016. She currently works as a private piano instructor and coach from her home studio and at the Maritime Conservatory of Music and Performing Arts in Halifax, NS. Jennifer was also the master class pianist the Young Artist Program at the Scotia Festival of Music for seven years. Since moving back from England in 2003 where she was an active musician and teacher, Ms. King has performed in hundreds of recitals and concerts at Acadia University and as a free-lance pianist in many of the Maritime region’s concert series. Jennifer can be heard in concert alongside some of Canada’s most respected singers and musicians and as a soloist. She has performed a number of Canadian premieres recently and loves exploring new music both solo and chamber music, as well as looking to past musical hidden gems.

Ms. King holds a Masters of Music degree in solo piano performance from McGill University, a Bachelor of Music from Acadia University and has completed postgraduate diplomas at the University of Reading in the UK as well as the prestigious Royal Academy of Music in London, England. She was a scholarship holder at the Kneisal Hall Chamber Music School, “the cradle of chamber music teaching in America” in Blue Hill, Maine, and of a grant for contemporary music studies at the Britten Pears School of Advanced Musical Studies in the UK. Her accolades include two scholarships from the Nova Scotia Talent Trust, and an Award of Appreciation from the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia in recognition of her contributions to musical life in the province. In 2016 Jennifer performed outside for 6 hours on the Halifax waterfront with artist Holly Carr for Nocturne Art at Night Festival. Jennifer is a strong believer in community, and reaches out to the next generation of artists, and educators. She was one of the founders of the Prince Edward Island Registered Music Teachers’ Association when she was 22 years old. She was on Provincial Council for NSRMTA where she has also been the Vice President, Registrar, Second Delegate and ran the NSRMTA Provincial Scholarship Competition for 2016 and 2017. She served on the NSYO board and is a member of Canadian Federation of Adjudicators Association and Atlantic Federation of Musicians. She is married to a veterinarian and has two busy teen-aged children.

Jennifer released her first solo album of night-inspired piano music O Mistress Moon in January 2018 as part of Cecilia Concerts Series in Halifax. Since then, the album has been featured on a number of radio stations, including CBC, and she has toured throughout Nova Scotia and P.E.I. with the program. The CD can be found digitally on Leaf Music, Apple Music, iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, and Google Play. The album is nominated for an ECMA 2019 award for Classical Recording of the Year.

Jennifer is also a Pop-Up Artist for the 75th anniversary celebrations of the Nova Scotia Talent Trust. She will be performing a number of short recitals throughout the province in 2019 to promote this important scholarship granting organization for emerging talent of all artistic disciplines. Since January 2019 Jennifer has performed at the Open Water Festival, Dartmouth Community Concert Series, Province House for the opening of Black Heritage Month, UPEI Recital Series and a Cookie Concert for Musique Royale Series.

Since returning to Nova Scotia, after completing her graduate studies at University of Toronto, Paula Rockwell has been steeped in musical projects, performances and music festivals in her home province, Canada and the United States. She teaches Applied Voice, Diction for Singers, Scene Studies and the Singing Actor at her alma mater Acadia University and has created productions for Acadia’s Singing Theatre Ensemble. She has been featured on several recordings and co-produced her debut CD entitled Fleeting Melodies, a collection of 20th century art songs and arias.

Paula has taken on several operatic roles since graduating from University of Toronto working with the Canadian Opera Company, Toronto’s Opera in Concert, Vancouver Opera, Tidal Opera, Orchestre Baroque de Montreal, Opera Nova Scotia and Maritime Concert Opera. She has performed with Symphony Nova Scotia, Chorus of Westerly, RI, North York Philharmonic, ON, Symphony New Brunswick, Peterborough Singers, ON, The Music Room Chamber Series in Halifax as well as for many fundraisers, including Music for Haiti, Women Only at Pier 21 and the annual Opera Nova Scotia’s Opera Valentine. Paula is heard every summer giving masterclasses, vocal warm-up sessions and a recital in Lyman, New Hampshire at The Ogontz Choral Symposium.

She adjudicates music festivals on the Provincial and National level and gives clinics/masterclasses on the topic of vocal pedagogy, interpretation and stage craft. Paula will be working on new projects including a recording of original works Unwrapped, due for release in September 2018, and a one woman show entitled Letters from Home, based on letters from her great grandmother to her maternal grandmother (circa 1941-1961).

Recent projects include directing and creating Scenes from Street Scenes by Kurt Weill, an opera excerpt show entitled The B Boys of Opera and a musical theatre excerpt program entitled The Games People Play in Musicals: Chess & The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and in 2016 directed Grease – the musical for Acadia’s Singing Theatre Ensemble. She was soloist with Acadia University’s Choral production of Mozart’s Coronation Mass and Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy. She also was the vocal coach for Halifax Summer Opera Workshop productions of Bizet’s Carmen and Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro. She sang the alto solo in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Symphony New Brunswick in May 2014 and performed it again in Fredericton, NB in April 2016. She has performed with the Halifax based contemporary music group, Musikon at the Saint Mary’s Art Gallery as well as a recent Garden Room Concert Series recital entitled Sing the Trumpet at Acadia University with trumpeter Curtis Dietz and collaborative pianist Jennifer King. This concert was performed again in September 2016 at the Indian Brook Concert Series in Cape Breton. In May 2016, Paula sang the mezzo-soprano solo in Verdi’s Requiem with the Chorus of Westerly, RI with Maestro David Hill at the podium and in August, performed a recital in New London and Lyman, NH with American collaborative pianist, Geoffrey Wieting. In May 2017, Paula sang the lead role in Opera Nova Scotia’s production of Gustav Holst’s opera Savitri. This past April she was the director of the Canadian musical Pélagie, written by Allen Cole, which was performed at Acadia’s Denton Auditorium and performed an Alumni Concert July 7 with collaborative pianist Jennifer King and David Parker, French horn, in the Garden Room at Acadia University. She has just finished performing the role of the Beggar Woman in Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd with Side-By-Side Productions and The Wolfville Theatre Collective at the Al Whittle Theatre, Wolfville, NS.