College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State University

Excelling in piano, composition

Junior music major Jennifer Edmondson is the recent winner of two concerto competitions and several other awards.
For a person with a passion for music, Jennifer Edmondson has never played anything but the piano. The Iowa State music student acknowledges that most musicians have played at least one other instrument, if only for a short time during childhood.

"I never have played anything else," admitted the junior from Ames who added with a laugh, "and I don't sing very well, either."

Edmondson is a pianist and a good one. She will play the harpsichord and has dabbled with the organ, but her fingers were meant for the piano, which she began playing at age 6.

"I always liked playing the piano," she said, "but as I got older practice was something I liked to do as opposed to something I had to do. My passion for the piano really kicked in when I was in high school."

Edmondson is a music major with emphases in piano performance and music composition. She's at the piano many hours a week, and if a performance or competition is looming, she might even spend more time in the practice room.

"I really practice as much as I can," added Edmondson, who represents the Department of Music on the
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Student Council.

At Iowa State she performs in small ensembles. It gives her the opportunity to play various forms of music, and even venture away from the piano. In a recent duet, she and another musician played baroque music for the harpsichord and recorder.

"The harpsichord is a very big change from the piano," she noted.

Edmondson received the 2008 Bruce Benward Theory-Composition Student Honorarium. The award was presented by from the Music Analysis Creative Research Organization, headquartered in Wisconsin.

The award, which comes with a $1,000 honorarium that can be used for her music education, recognizes her abilities in composition and music theory.

Edmondson also has received other composition awards including the 2006 Iowa Composers Forum's Marilynn Etzel College Scholarship Competition. The piece submitted to the competition, "Three Preludes" for solo piano, was selected for performance at the Iowa Composers Forum's 20th Anniversary Festival of New Music in November 2007. In 2008 her work, "Passacaglia" for solo piano, was selected as winner of the Iowa State Department of Music Composition Competition.

She also captured two recent concerto competitions, which qualified her to perform with the Des Moines Symphony and the Fort Dodge Area Symphony.

After Iowa State Edmondson is eyeing graduate school for a master's or a doctoral degree to teach music composition or piano. "My biggest goal is to keep composing and performing," she said, "and an academic position would allow me to do that."