Episode 18 - Jenna Veverka
Episode 18 features Jenna Veverka, performer, educator, and co-founder of the Key of She Brass Workshop. We talk with Jenna about her organizations, projects, and composition and audition practices.
To learn more about Jenna and the resources and organizations she recommended to us, check out the links below!
Jenna’s work - Solo Ascent → Click “Recordings” and then “New Unaccompanied Music for Trumpet and Flugelhorn (2020)” to hear a recording and download a free copy of the music!
Key of She Brass Workshop
University of Kentucky Summer Trumpet Institute
Dressember Foundation
Longy Career Coaching with Ashley Hall
International Women’s Brass Conference
Brass Out Loud
We Create Jazz
New Downbeat
Brass for Africa
Full Transcript
Carrie Blosser 0:01
Welcome to Diversify the Stand, the resource centered around listening, learning and promoting diverse musical voices in music, through our podcast, website, commissioning projects, and more. I'm Carrie Blosser.
Ashley Killam 0:15
And I'm Ashley Killam. Join us on our journey as we speak with composers, creators, performers, historians, and music educators about the topics important to them and musics’ betterment. We are so excited to welcome Jenna Veverka to our podcast today. Jenna is an active musician and educator in the Greater Cincinnati area. She co-founded and directs the Key of She brass workshop, a workshop for high school girls in the summer of 2016. And she is also the assistant director of the University of Kentucky's Summer Trumpet Institute. Welcome Jenna. We are so excited to talk with you today.
Jenna Veverka 0:56
Thank you so much. I am really excited to be here on your podcast. It's been so cool to learn about Diversify the Stand and your mission, and I think this is a much-needed project, and I'm super thrilled it's happening now. So thank you for having me.
Carrie Blosser 1:09
Yeah, thank you for joining us. Also I do just love having, like, three women that play the trumpet all on, like, the same Zoom call, like it just makes me personally very, like, happy. So it's not just a trumpet podcast, but I do enjoy it when there's, like, three ladies that play trumpet which is fun. So, well, I wanted to dig in a little bit. I had been doing some personal research and some projects this summer, and I came across Key of She, and I’d love for you to talk about how Key of She brass workshop started. You co-founded it, how it all came together, and kind of, like, the impact of that first conference.
Jenna Veverka 1:40
Yes. So Key of She Brass is—a little context and background, an all-female organization that I co- founded with a really great friend of mine, Katie Uriah, back in 2015. And Katie and I had been friends since junior high school. So really good, good, true friends. And really, one day we were sitting in the car and having a long sort of conversation about some of the ways we both personally experienced gender equality issues or saw things going on in college. And Katie was an arts management major, and I was a music education and performance major, and decided we wanted to do something to much better represent female artists, and thought that there was a lack in our communities from what we were seeing of females being represented. And we especially wanted to make sure that these artists were seen and heard by young women. So we had both also, at that time, attended different music conferences, and art workshops, and summer institutes and been involved with getting started with working at them and running them as well. And it was something we loved being involved with and thought we could actually do something like that ourselves and have an actual impact in our community. And for sure, we're both passionate about it being educational. So we, you know, talked about our different strengths. And it was actually kind of a perfect partnership, Katie, having been involved in arts management, I, you know, was really green about the business aspect of things and marketing. And I mean, truly, I had no idea what I was doing. As far as all of that I had never done any fundraising or any, anything like that before. I’d just, you know, done summer workshops and gone to conferences myself. So it just was such a great relationship. And we had the kind of perfect backgrounds for it. So after talking it through and talking about the different strengths that we had, we said, let's actually go for it and acted on that impulse, we kind of, she's a great friend, and we always have conversations like that all the time—wouldn’t it be cool to do this. And we decided let's actually do it, we have a, just, where we were in our lives to that point, some extra time to try this. And if it doesn't succeed the way we plan to, or it doesn't turn out exactly like we plan, it's still going to bring women together in some capacity. And so we knew either way, it would be a success. So it ended up the first year taking shape in the form of a workshop. So our goal was to have Key of She be an organization that has maybe a performing group of all women to get them out in the city and doing concerts, have educational workshops, and maybe some retreats for college-age students or women professionals, musicians. And yeah, that first workshop was amazing. It was a one day event that we had, very much like a music conference and you have different master classes and workshops and lectures, and it was a completely women-run day. We had an all-female faculty of local brass-playing women in Pittsburgh and involved some college students as well. We wanted to give college students in the area an opportunity to get involved in something like this and get started with teaching a class or playing with the girls and leading them in some way, and then also for high school students and the young students, we wanted it to be an educational experience and for them to get to play alongside these professionals and these older women who are really successful. Yeah, it was super inspiring for both of us. We learned a lot along the way. It was a very new process for both of us. A lot of really hard work. But we were so inspired with how supportive everyone was and how willing they were to jump in and help. So we just feel really lucky with the support that we received.
Carrie Blosser 5:10
Yeah, that's awesome. I think I told you about this. I was I was researching Rebecca Bower Cherian. Yeah. And that’s where, because she was one of the speakers and performers for that group, but I was like, oh, so great.
Jenna Veverka 5:22
She was fantastic. She spoke to the girls about some difficulties that she had, you know, on her audition route, and getting to where she is. And a lot of the students that attended actually didn't even you know, know, things like that went on, or some of them felt a bit isolated at their school or in their situation, being the only girl trumpet player or brass player, or even maybe in the band. So to hear her speak about it, and how she succeeded through all of her challenges, it was amazing to watch that. And we had a couple of, actually, guest videos for that workshop from Sarah Willis over in Berlin, and Carole Reinhart over in Austria, and Julie Landsman, who talked a little bit as well. So, it was just also, yeah, really inspiring for me to get to talk to and work with these women.
Carrie Blosser 6:07
It's amazing. Once you open the can of, like, learning and finding more, like, you know, representation through either orchestras or performers, you start to meet so many amazing people and, like, all they want to do is help other people like them, or people who feel isolated to, like, not feel so isolated, and, like, get them involved and included.
Absolutely, I think that was the most biggest thing I learned and most exciting thing about the experience for me, was doing it and getting that support and learning about what other women are doing and realizing if there's something you want to do, and you reach out to people who are, you know, already doing what you want, or you want to get involved with, no matter how big of a star they might seem to you, people are so willing to work together and work on different projects.
Ashley Killam 6:51
And so, kind of sort of related to your background, you did a lot of competing as you were going up with national trumpet competitions and the International Trumpet Guild competitions. And so we were just wondering, as a female brass player, what was this experience and whole process like, and for anyone listening that might be looking into competitions like that, did you have, like, a way that you prepared to be successful for these types of things?
Jenna Veverka 7:19
It changed as I did more of the competitions, you know, I learned from each one for sure. And I think why I got so interested in them and continued to do them was from the first few experiences I had at the National Trumpet Competition were just so positive because I did it with friends. So the first competition I did was for the National Trumpet Competition in 2012. And we went with a seven piece trumpet ensemble from our school. And it was, I think, I might not be 100% accurate on this, but I believe it was the first time Ithaca college had sent a trumpet ensemble to NTC. So we were really determined to put our school on the map and do really well. And everybody in that group was really serious about it. And we scheduled rehearsals ourselves, planned rehearsals ourselves, decided our repertoire ourselves, it was very much student-led. And that worked really well for me, that environment. So that was really exciting. And I just absorb every rehearsal tips, practice tips and ideas from everybody who was in that group, we all kind of took turns leading rehearsal and making suggestions. You know, we made sure to all support each other and listen to each other. And of course, there were disagreements, that was a great learning process, just learning how to rehearse with each other and come to an agreement about what are we going to do next rehearsal? What's our focus for this week? You know, when are we going to start doing mock auditions and that sort of thing, we just had a great experience that first year, made it to semi-finals, and then the next year had a smaller group. And we had all done it that first year. And so we learned a lot from that experience. The big sort of goal, I think, for that second year was to have a really unified sound. So we would do practice fundamentals together both in rehearsal as a full group, and then we would, you know, that crept into our daily practice. And so we'd see each other in the hallway and go, you know, work out of the Arban’s book together, or, I don't know, do scales together, duets. So we were pairing off all the time working on playing together, tossing ideas around. And then also in rehearsal, we just tried to get as unified as possible. So we would, you know, do articulation exercises, and everyone would just pass around playing one note, and we would try to make sure it had the exact same articulation and we would do chord tuning exercises, and just all kinds of fundamentals, we would work on together to really become a strong unit. And again, we're very self-motivated and set our rehearsal schedule ourselves and determined ourselves how we were going to rehearse and recorded. The big, I remember, the big thing we did differently the second year was record ourselves a lot and of course, we sought our teacher’s advice and went to our professors and asked for coachings and play for them and the second year, we made it to the finals. And I remember that being crazy exciting, because we knew how many hours we had put into it staying up till you know one in the—I remember rehearsals, we would be at school in a classroom hall, you know, till one in the morning, two in the morning. But just the more we were together, the more we learned from each other and became better musicians and better at rehearsing. So I think, I don't know, maybe the big, biggest overall thing was that I think just how much time we put into it and how dedicated we were, and that time together unified our ideas, how we were going about everything, and we really made sure to listen to each other and make sure that everyone was on the same page throughout the preparation process.
Carrie Blosser 7:20
And you did IWBC military band.
Jenna Veverka 7:43
Yes.
Carrie Blosser 8:02
Solo-wise, too, right?
Jenna Veverka 10:44
Yes. So I did the military mock audition in 2017. And I think something that helped for that audition when I was actually there, I think was feeling so comfortable and supported. That was such—I don't think it was my first IWBC, I'm pretty sure it was my second conference that I had went to for IWBC. And every time it's just like crazy exciting and motivational to be around everyone. And it does, to me, it does feel different. It feels, I do feel more comfortable, a little more comfortable there and supported. And for that audition, I had actively been taking auditions before that audition. So I was really familiar with the excerpts for a while. When I started grad school in 2016, I think I started taking professional auditions right away that first semester. So I had been pretty comfortable and familiar with the excerpts and spent a lot of time with them already. So that was really helpful that I did a lot of not just like mock auditions for myself or my friends, but actually out, you know, for professional groups and in band and had real world experience with those excerpts. So I don't know if there's anything in particular for that audition that was really different from other ways that I prepared. But I think at that point, I had had enough experience with auditions to really learn, you know, just learn better, how to prepare better, and what I really need, as far as how much you know, to rest before the audition, or how many mocks I really need to be doing, or the day of, do I need my banana? Do I need to listen to this playlist before, you know, right before I walk in? Do I need to meditate? Do I need to do yoga? And so I am that type of person that I do kind of, it does help for me to do a lot of sort of checklist things the day of the audition, whether it's just the placebo effect, the to know that I've done that, that helps me but I was implementing a lot of those things, not just trying them out for the first time, but I was practiced at them. So I think that really helped. I had sort of an audition day routine and maybe the couple days before routine. And by that point, I had played these excerpts for many, many different people and listened to myself 1001 times on them. And that was a big thing that I've developed. It took me a little while to get going with recording myself, being willing to record myself and listen back very regularly. And that was something I think I started doing much better and much more frequently.
Carrie Blosser 13:19
Oh yeah, I figured out Led Zeppelin is like my success. Like I did it before, like, all of my, like, graduate recitals and, like, a few auditions I took and that seemed to really weirdly, like, ground me and center me and it was nothing like this, like the squealing things around me, of, like, the trumpet players like—
Jenna Veverka 13:38
Yeah, yeah, for me, for me, too. It's really important to have that right. I have a whole playlist that I use and, like, I will dance in the dressing room before walking out on stage. I did that for a Pittsburgh Symphony sub audition. And I was like, if somebody caught me, this is absolutely crazy. But it helped actually so much.
Carrie Blosser 13:58
Yeah, I think there's a lot of things we feel like we should do before an audition. And then there's the stuff that, like, you as a human need to do just to make yourself comfortable in this scenario. And I don't know that many people, like, kind of talk about like, you know, it's okay, if you need to, like do yoga or stretch, like your space to get ready is your space. I feel like we could have an entire podcast about walking into a trumpet audition and being, like, one of five women that are in the room.
Jenna Veverka 14:26
It's it's been interesting. Yeah, I was even still surprised. After, I don't know, the first year of auditioning that I saw, you know, the same few women and especially for some of the military band auditions. I remember seeing this one other female trumpet player multiple times at some of the military band auditions and, you know, kind of came in expecting that, I mean, I'm just sort of used to that and, but I was still surprised.
Carrie Blosser 14:59
So a few months ago, you did a benefit fundraiser concert. And I'd love to ask you about the group that you were making the concert for and anything that you learned along the way.
Jenna Veverka 15:09
Yes, this is, that concert was for an organization called Dressember, and they're a nonprofit and global organization that works to end human trafficking, all forms of human trafficking. So I got involved with advocating for Dressember a few years ago, from a really great friend and colleague of mine, Stephen Wadsack, we were doing our masters together at CCM. And Stephen came to school with a tie or bow tie on every day for the month of December, and I noticed that it was happening every day. And so I asked him what it was about and Dressember every December has a fundraising campaign and advocacy campaign, encourages people to, if you are female and want to wear a dress or a male and want to wear a dress, anyone can wear a dress or a tie. And the dress and the tie is sort of their flag of the movement to reappropriate what a dress or a tie means and symbolizes and to change that stigma of what happens in a dress. And it's also a conversation starter. You know, if someone comments, oh, you know, I like what you're wearing, or you look nice today, that's a way to talk about why you've dressed up that day. So this organization is phenomenal. They work with a strategy of prevention, intervention, and then also recovery and protection. So it's a really full circle way that they're helping victims of human trafficking. And the organization has just grown and they partner with all kinds of great, amazing other nonprofit organizations and communities. So Stephen and I have both been supporting this group for a few years and decided this year, we wanted to do something a little bit more and not being able to, you know, be in person to advocate, and both of us not having had very many performance opportunities, decided, okay, I think it's time to do a fundraiser concert. It was definitely on our mind, you know, kind of from the beginning, from day one of hearing about this organization. And I love doing benefit concerts and that sort of thing. So we decided we can make it work virtually, and also thought it would be a great way to get some of our colleagues and friends involved and get them some performance opportunities, especially friends that were spread across the country. So we had musicians from Texas, Nebraska, Michigan, that we wanted to feature who we dearly missed playing with, and they were also really into Dressember and supporting it. So it was definitely, you know, not the ideal way to do a fundraiser concert. But we thought this is at least something, you know, we can do, and maybe a way to also around the holidays when everything was so different this past year to maybe spread a little extra holiday cheer and do what we could, you know, and in our, you know, communities, for our family and friends. So yeah, it's been amazing learning about that organization. And all the people that we reached out to to perform for the event were just so excited to do it. And again, I was just like, so impressed and thrilled with the support that we had to do it. I'm sort of a crazy dreamer and planner. And so I'm always thinking about the next project, what to get started on. And sometimes I just put it off, because I think it's going to be, I mean, I know it's going to be a lot of work. And I want it to be, you know, something big and grand. And so, but a lot of times that prevents me from doing it at all. So this is a great, you know, another experience of saying, okay, well, we don't have a ton of time to plan this, but we want to do something, let's do the best that we can with it and have some great musicians and have fun.
Carrie Blosser 18:53
Excellent. Thank you.
Ashley Killam 18:54
And so I found you when I was looking at Jason Dovel’s unaccompanied trumpet CD. And of course, anytime I find works by anyone that's not a white guy, I'm like, yeah! Or dead.
Jenna Veverka 19:10
Or deceased, yeah.
Ashley Killam 19:12
And so, I mean, you're an educator and performer. And we'd love to hear about, I mean, both the piece, Solo Ascent, that you wrote, and how you got into composing, too, because that's really cool that you've got, I mean, you're doing all of these various things in all facets, which is awesome.
Jenna Veverka 19:29
Yeah, I am still surprised when I look back and realize I've written a piece and it's been recorded and out there on an album. I'm like, kind of look behind my shoulder and say is that really, was that me? Is that my name on the CD? This is a really exciting, exciting project, something that I never thought I would have done if you had told me, you know, back in college or even a year ago that I would have written a piece I would have, you know, definitely laughed at that thought. I don't think I can actually you know, finish a piece. Dr. Dovel had asked me if I wanted to be involved on this project. I had done some arranging in college and had some experience with that and just sort of do it for fun and have been wanting to spend more time on it. And he wanted to make sure he had female composers and young composers on this CD. So he asked me to write a piece and I thought this would be a great opportunity to learn and stretch my creative muscles, and go for it. And actually, at that point, when I was deciding whether or not to do it, I had just watched this documentary called Free Solo, which was about this rock climber Alex Honnold who climbed El Capitan with no rock climbing equipment or safety net whatsoever. So I was really just sort of charged from watching that documentary. I don't do rock climbing aside from like, maybe once a year, I go to a rock climbing gym, but I've never actually done it outside on a real rock. But it's always been something I've wanted to make a hobby of, or do somewhat regularly. So I was really into this documentary and just watching I thought the film did a great job of expressing, you know, and kind of portraying what Alex went through, emotionally and physically and everything that it took. And I was not only inspired to just like, kind of go do something crazy and adventurous after watching it, but I felt like I could, in some small way relate to what he went through, obviously, being a musician is totally different than being a rock climber, and doing something that's, you know, has some really serious, serious risks. But watching him go through the process, I felt like, you know, in some sort of small way, I can relate, as a performer, you know, what it's like the, you know, preparing for an audition and getting up that day, and having a lot of self doubt, and, you know, or, you know, playing a recital, and then getting to the unaccompanied piece, or it's just me. So I decided, okay, I'm gonna write this piece, and it's going to be about this, you know, rock climbing experience, what that journey is like, and as I was writing it, also, I wanted to make sure that it was cathartic for the performer as well, because I know what that is like to perform. And, and so I wanted the performer to feel like they were on that journey as well, while they were actually performing that piece. So it is programatic, you know, kind of starts off with like, the, you know, mountains in the morning, and what it would be like the day of when you have, you know, that morning, when you have something really, really challenging or scary coming up, or something big you're about to do and what that's like, and then, you know, on your way to the concert hall, to the stage, to the mountain, you know what that's like, that walk when you're kind of pumping yourself up and getting ready for it. And then of course, you know, along the climb along the performance, you know, all kinds of things happen. Of course, the piece gets to that really big challenging moment. And then of course, spoiler alert. For anyone who hasn't seen the film, it ends with overcoming that challenge and getting to enjoy that success. So yeah, it was a really fun piece to write. It was nice to have time, while of course, it wouldn't be the way I would want to have time to go outside and have time to compose during the pandemic, but having that extra time, I tried to take advantage of it. And while I was writing the piece, go for walks and take some hikes and do that.
Carrie Blosser 23:28
So I did this masterclass in Hawaii, there's a school in Hawaii that I actually sent your piece and the, all the pieces to, because the students they were looking for new music to play because they were all stuck. You know, it's the COVID-cation. They’re just all stuck at home. They're just a bunch of trumpet players in Hawaii have your piece.
Jenna Veverka 23:47
That is so cool. It was a little bit scary. So it's really exciting to hear that people are enjoying the piece.
Carrie Blosser 23:53
Yeah, excellent.
Ashley Killam 23:55
And then our final question that we ask everyone is what's on your music stand this week? And how are you diversifying your stand?
Jenna Veverka 24:03
It's not as exciting. This particular week, as I was hoping, but I am, I have some piano music that I'm working on just for fun. I am pretty—I have been in the, you know, audition process on the audition trail for quite a while. And so, before the pandemic, you know, excerpts were my life and I do love it. I love every second of it. But I've been trying to, you know, take a little bit of a break from classical music, especially orchestral excerpts. So I've been, I grew up playing piano and teach beginning and intermediate piano. So I've been trying to work on piano, so just playing around on just some pop tunes on piano, and then I have been breaking out GarageBand and some different apps actually, trying to work on my tech skills and playing around with that to have some better resources for myself for composing. With Solo Ascent, I am thinking of tinkering with that piece again, and adding some sort of technology aspect to it, maybe some different effects. I don't know if I would say sound effects, but I'm looking at also adapting that piece for maybe, I don't know, trumpet and GarageBand or something, to for those who are interested in contemporary music, or using modern technology. So I've just kind of been getting myself familiar with the different apps that are out there. So that's, that's been fun this past week.
Carrie Blosser 25:45
Excellent. Thank you so much for joining us.
Jenna Veverka 25:48
And thank you both. I'm so excited to have learned about this project and get involved a little bit and talk to you both. And I cannot wait to listen to all of the other podcasts and hear about what everybody else is doing.
Ashley Killam 26:00
Thank you so much for listening to Diversify the Stand. I am Ashley.
Carrie Blosser 26:04
And I'm Carrie. If you'd like to support us and our projects, check out our Patreon www.patreon.com/diversify_the_stand. Also, the link is in our podcast description.
Ashley Killam 26:20
And a huge thank you to Trevor Weston and Whitney George for allowing us to use their compositions in our podcast. The musical introduction is Trevor's trumpet duet Fanfare for Changes, and the ending music is Whitney's Incantations for trumpet and piano. Both composers’ websites are also listed in the description.
Carrie Blosser 26:38
Until next time, what's on your stand?