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Dr. Natalie Groom is a clarinetist, educator, composer, and arts administrator 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, Goethe-Institut, and Austrian, Spanish, and Colombian Embassies. She has toured China with the Fred Fox Wind Quintet and performed with the Annapolis Symphony, Annapolis Opera, Richmond Symphony, Virginia Opera, and Tucson Symphony.
Natalie particularly loves where music intersects advocacy. 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. To date, the Hens have released two albums, premiered 38 pieces, inspired 23 dedicated works, and commissioned 17 compositions. Additionally, as founder of Three Reeds and a Horn trio, Natalie promotes flex music in her Flexing the Canon project. With 12 commissions to date, she is building an overlooked body of repertoire, flex chamber trios, to ensure music is accessible to student musicians and for schools in need flexible music options to include everyone in the program.
With Whistling Hens, Natalie has been featured in Classical Singer magazine (2023) and awarded Chamber Music America’s Classical Commissioning Grant (2022) and Residency Partnership Grant (2020), the Iranian Female Composers Association’s Inaugural Award (2023), and the International Alliance for Women in Music Programming Award (2023). Educators at heart, Whistling Hens has been a guest ensemble for the Washington National Opera Institute and the Ensemble in Residence for Darkwater Women in Music Festival (2021), Smith College (2023), Metropolitan State University of Denver (2024), Towson University (2025), and Women Composers Festival of Hartford (2027).
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. In 2024, she was recognized for her inventive and explorative teaching with three Towson University Scholarship of Teaching and Learning grants focused on the use of innovative classroom technologies and developing Open Educational Resources (OER) materials.
As a composer, Natalie’s music has been performed at the College Music Society international conference in Medellín, Colombia, American Single Reed Summit, International Clarinet Association Conference, District New Music Coalition Conference, Mississippi Music by Women Festival, University of Maryland, College Park, 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 for solo clarinet, was featured in the International Clarinet Association Journal, and she’s currently working on a series of clarinet etudes.
Natalie is engaged in the music industry as a voting member of the Recording Academy. 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.