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Dr. Natalie Groom is a clarinetist, educator, composer, and arts manager in Maryland where she is the clarinet professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) and Towson University. Showcasing “rich, fluid, and colorful tone and skilled technical ability” (International Clarinet Association Journal), a few of Natalie’s performance career highlights include being a concerto soloist with the White Mountain Symphony Orchestra and performing at The Kennedy Center, AMP by Strathmore, New World Center, The Anthem, Phillips Collection, Austrian and Spanish Embassies, and Goethe-Institut. She has toured China with the Fred Fox Wind Quintet and performed with the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet, Annapolis Symphony, Annapolis Opera, and Tucson Symphony.
Natalie particularly loves where chamber music intersects activism—in 2018, Natalie and soprano Jennifer Piazza-Pick founded Whistling Hens® to perform and commission music by women composers and create a financially and artistically equitable future for women in music. In 2022, Whistling Hens released their debut album, Reacting to the Landscape, a “masterfully accomplished album that showcases the dynamic prowess of both the performers and composers while also highlighting women writers” (International Alliance for Women in Music Journal). The Hens were awarded Chamber Music America’s Classical Commissioning Grant with composer Kate Soper (2022) and Residency Partnership Grant (2020). In 2023 they were featured in Classical Singer Magazine, served as guest clinicians at Washington National Opera Institute at The Kennedy Center, and received the inaugural Iranian Female Composers Association Award with composer Mojgan Misaghi and the International Alliance for Women in Music Programming Award.
As a committed educator and academic, Natalie has been published numerous times in the International Clarinet Association journal, and she is co-inventor of the new single reed micrometer, Reed Mapper®, on which she wrote her dissertation. In addition to giving masterclasses and presentations across the country, she has conducted numerous clarinet choirs and taught clarinet and chamber music at the University of Maryland, College Park and University of Arizona.
As a composer/arranger, Natalie’s music has been performed at the American Single Reed Summit, International Clarinet Association Conference, District New Music Coalition Conference, Mississippi Music by Women Festival, University of Maryland, The Anthem, and Smithsonian American History Museum. In 2019, two of her arrangements were premiered opening for the National Symphony Orchestra, and in 2022 two of her arrangements for rapper and wind orchestra were premiered by the University of Maryland, College Park Wind Orchestra. April 22nd, an unaccompanied clarinet piece, was featured in the International Clarinet Association Journal in 2022, and she’s currently working on a series of story works for children.
Natalie is musically engaged working as a voting member of the Recording Academy and as the Manager of Advancement Operations and Analytics at Washington Performing Arts. Prior to this role, she was an audio engineer, producer, and manager for virtual and live classical music at Arts Laureate, and she was an Artist in Residence at Collington Retirement Community where she responded to the pandemic with 45 virtual events that brought essential programming to isolated seniors.
Natalie Groom earned her D.M.A. at the University of Maryland, College Park, M.B.A. and M.M. at the University of Arizona, and B.M. at Kent State University, and she studied with Robert DiLutis, Jerry Kirkbride, Dennis Nygren, Amitai Vardi, Jackie Glazier, and Joseph Minocchi.
Photo credit Will Starks.