Jane Gardner, Piano Teacher, St George's Music Department

Jane Gardner is a pianist and composer based in Edinburgh, Scotland. She studied at York University, the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland), and holds a PhD in Composition from Goldsmiths College, London University. She won the prestigious Gullivar Award Bursary, nominated by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, to study Indonesian music in Java and Bali.

For many years as a silent film accompanist, she has performed live composed/improvised accompaniments to audiences in cinemas, including the British Film Institute in London, the Hippodrome Silent Film Festival (Hippfest) in Bo’ness, and at many other venues and festivals. She recently contributed to the 4-disk Blu-ray/DVD box set ‘Cinema’s First Nasty Women’, due to be released at the end of August 2022.

Jane’s concert hall works have been commissioned and performed by groups such as the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Piano Circus (6 pianos) and the Mistry String Quartet. She has worked extensively in theatre & dance and has composed for companies such as Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre and acrobatic string group ‘The Gogmagogs’. In 1994 she received a Major Composer’s Bursary from the Scottish Arts Council to further work based on ‘The Twelve Dancing Princesses’ by the brothers Grimm.

As a music copyist and orchestrator, she has collaborated with many artists, including composer/producer Jim Sutherland on many projects including Disney Pixar’s ‘BRAVE’ soundtrack. She worked with Scottish folk musician Freeland Barbour on his book ‘The Music and the Land’.

Jane enjoys teaching piano, music theory and composition and has many students of all ages.