I've
heard it said that you shouldn't be in the music or theatre business
unless you can't imagine doing anything else. That's part of why
I do what I do. That is also why I love to teach children and adults
to be better performers.
I started taking piano lessons when I was seven
years old, but my interest and aptitude in music began at a very
young age. When I was a toddler, I informed my mother that she was
singing out of tune, and one of the first songs I learned on my
own was a cigarette commercial from television.
Brenna moved to New York
City in 2002 from Portland, Oregon, where she had been working as
a music director, accompanist, vocal coach, composer and arranger
since 1986. She also has numerous credits as an actor, singer and
dancer. Professional theatre credits (music direction, composition,
sound design or acting) include:
Off Broadway: Big Apple Circus, American Girls Revue, Assistant Music Director.
Off-Off-Broadway: Chess, The Full Monty, Bachelorette, 4Play, Nunsense, Torch Song Trilogy, Urinetown, and Puck’d (a punk rock adaptation of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream – for which she composed the music with Billy Atwell).
She has been rockin’ since fourth grade, when she kept her classmates in for recess to start their own rock band. The rock band thing was actually successful in ninth grade when she put together an all-girl band for a variety show in high school called the “Billion Dollar Babies”. Their one song, “Born to Be Wild” was learned from a book, and their faces were painted like the members of KISS.
Brenna attended Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon, studying piano, clarinet, Javanese Gamelan, voice, conducting, acting, and dance. She received her BA from CUNY Hunter College in 2009 in Music with a minor in Theater, also studying French Language, modern French civilization and French women's literature. She recently wrote and performed in her second one-woman show, “Hebomia: Will the real Brenna please stand up?” after receiving a grant from the Performing Arts Fund at Hunter College. She is currently researching and writing a musical about 18th century French playwright and political activist Olympe de Gouges.
