Performer, composer, and lifelong jazz educator.
Robin Connell brings together concert performance, original composition, and decades of teaching in a career rooted in artistry, generosity, and musical depth.
Jazz pianist and vocalist Robin Connell, recipient of the ArtPrize 2016 jazz music award and the West Michigan Jazz Society’s 2017 Musician of the Year honor, performs regularly as both bandleader and collaborator with leading jazz artists in Michigan and beyond.
Her work spans intimate trio settings, duo and quartet performances with husband Paul Brewer, and ongoing projects such as Jazz in the Sanctuary at Fountain Street Church, which she has hosted since the series began in 2014.
Robin is equally passionate about jazz education. Her teaching background includes twenty summers on jazz faculty at Interlochen, collegiate instruction at Aquinas College, co-directing the St. Cecilia Youth Jazz Ensembles, and presenting at the 2020 Jazz Education Network conference in New Orleans.
With a Doctor of Arts in Music Composition from the University of Northern Colorado, Robin has written numerous instrumental works and earned multiple national and state arts grants. Her commissions include Derailed, written for the 1998 Massachusetts All-State Jazz Band, which she also conducted.