Creativity and Curiosity

A little background

Chris Chalfant is a prolific composer and educator residing in the New York area. She began her training in art, music and theatre at a young age, graduating from a performing arts program in Akron, Ohio. Chalfant worked in college radio and at to pay for school which exposed her to a wide palette of music. She received her BA in Music from Kent State where she studied African Music and Dance and piano and received her MM at New England Conservatory studying jazz and composition. Chalfant studied Dalcroze Eurhythmics and improvisation at Longy School in Cambridge. She delved into performance art and free improvisation in her early career, performing in concerts, at clubs and on radio. Chalfant began her music studio in Cambridge and taught in the Preparatory Department at New England Conservatory. Eventually moving to New York Chalfant taught music and movement at Brooklyn Conservatory and Montessori as well as private piano. She became part of the jazz scene, working largely with Joseph Jarman in The Dojo Band and Lifetime Visions Orchestra .Chalfant’s works were widely performed and recorded with the various groups and in solo format. Much or the work is documented in “Book of Unstandards” and can be found on Youtube under the channel ChrismChalfant. Chris’ multi-media project “Looking Through Trees” was presented in it’s various forms of development at the Chelsea Museum in New York, at conferences and in the culminating performance in Brooklyn, NY. This revived interested in merging genres brought Chalfant back to visual art as it relates to the improvisatory nature of life and how this applies to studying and teaching music. Chalfant more recently taught piano and musicianship at Manna House Jazz Workshop in New York and currently teaches private piano, composition and musicianship in person and via live video formats.