Blossom Maryse Jaimes Montano, piano and voice
Blossom-Maryse Jaimes-Montano is a classically trained pianist, singer, composer and music instructor. With a musical education spanning 15 years, ranging from The Royal Conservatory in Canada to a Bachelor of Arts in Music at the George Washington University, Blossom has acquired a well-rounded music education, with focuses on composition, music pedagogy, music theory, and piano and vocal performance.
Her repertoire and performance experience a variety of genres, including a particular interest in music of the Romantic period as the focus for her Senior Thesis Capstone Project at GWU. Her experience in piano performance includes the Edmonton Music & Speech Arts Festival in Canada, numerous recitals through the Montgomery County Music Teachers Association, and solo piano and chamber music cameratas at the Corcoran School of Arts and Design’s Hammer Auditorium. Blossom has studied piano with Andrew Zatman and Ning Yu, and continues studying piano with Opal Music Studio owner, pedagogue, and pianist Molly Orlando. Blossom has also had ample experience as a collaborative pianist, both in pit orchestras for student theater productions and in Chamber Ensembles, playing both piano and harpsichord. ​
Her vocal performance experience includes musical theater performances (including Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz), performances of her original arrangements, and performances as a soloist and member of the award-winning a cappella group the Acatonics. The Acatonics were the winners of the SingStrong New York High School Competition and the International Championship of High School A Cappella (ISCHA) Regional Quarterfinals. In college, she studied vocal performance with Washington Opera tenor Robert Baker.
Blossom has also worked with professor and composer Douglas Boyce as an advisor while composing a variety of pieces that she will perform at the historic Salon Doré in the Corcoran School of Arts and Design, along with a selection of piano and vocal repertoire by Frederic Chopin, Maria Szymanowska, Robert Schumann and Clara Schumann. Through this project, she intends to shed light on the obstacles that women composers have faced that have hindered their prolificity and renown. Blossom has extensive exposure to the science of learning, including graduate-level pedagogy courses which informed her experience as a learning assistant for an introductory Biology course. She has since been able to apply the learning techniques she used to teach science to her primary passion, music. Her music-specific teaching experience includes volunteering at the Tacy Foundation and teaching piano to elementary school students, as well as being a voice and piano instructor to students of all ages in Bethesda, Maryland since the summer of 2024. Her background in Brain Sciences and Psychology informs her passion for the process of learning music and how to best tailor teaching methods to individual students with enthusiasm and empathy, a skill she hopes to continue developing by pursuing a graduate degree in music pedagogy.