Anne-Marie Hildebrandt is a composer, arranger, singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Although a graduate of The Juilliard School in Piano Performance, her musical path has been unique and varied, beginning with classical piano lessons at age 3. She remained on the classical route until she reached New York City, where she was exposed to many different types of music and cultures. While at Juilliard, she taught Ear Training in both the College and Pre-College, and this combined with a growing interest in some of the more creative, aural-based musical genres lead to the development of her now considerable skills of improvisation. There were rock bands, jazz bands, folk groups, and years of earning her keep playing cocktail music at private parties and clubs in the City, but it was at around this time that she also found her way into what would become one of her greatest passions, Irish traditional music. With a connection to Irish music that transcended the music itself and included a deep respect and affection for the tradition and people, Anne-Marie immersed herself in the Irish immigrant culture in New York City for many years, picking up the fiddle, the guitar and the tin whistle among other instruments, learning from great players and traditional singers.
Some years later, Anne-Marie found her way back to her classical roots in the form of musical arranging and composition, but this time her background in Irish music and improvisational piano combined with her classical know-how to create a very different kind of music. With many titles listed in the J.W. Pepper catalogue and others self-published, Anne-Marie now has a variety of written music available, from vocal and choral pieces to piano solo pieces to instrumental combinations. Each piece reveals the artifacts of her musical journey in a different way, combining the poignancy of Irish music with the grace of classical, the lilt of jazz, or the earthiness of folk music, and always crackling with Anne-Marie's imaginative and irresistible creativity.
Besides composing and performing, music education has long been an important part of Anne-Marie's musical life. Since merging the considerable classical training of her youth with the versatile skills of improvisation and playing by ear, her teaching style has developed to include all of these areas in a new and exciting way. Her voice, piano and ear training students learn to explore their creativity, to harness their ears, and to collaborate with others as they develop a deep knowledge of the way music is built along with the equally useful skills of reading music and traditional technique. Anne-Marie is currently working on an exciting, intuitive new teaching method, to be released within the year as an online music course.
Through all this, Anne-Marie continues to perform as a singer/songwriter, a choral conductor, and as a singer, pianist and fiddler with various bands and groups. In 2008 she was honored to share the stage of Carnegie Hall with Bobby McFerrin in an improvisatory "opera", and continues to be a featured performer as part of Carnegie Hall's "Musical Explorers" series. She has released several CD's, including her 2009 album with her Utah-based women's choir, Citrine, and their band, entitled Aglow, featuring her Celtic-inspired arrangements and original songs. Also available is a 2007 collection of religious songs dedicated to her mother, At Jesus' Knee.
