Biography
Born in Buffalo, NY, Anita earned degrees in Piano Performance from the Oberlin
College Conservatory and the University of Iowa where she was a doctoral student
of John Simms.
In 1981, Anita joined the music faculty at Willamette University where she taught
courses in piano performance, accompanying and chamber music, music theory,
interdisciplinary courses in the arts, and a course on Body Mapping and the
Alexander Technique for musicians and actors until her retirement in 2017. Anita
has been a Licensed Body Mapping Educator since 2000 and a certified teaching
member of Alexander Technique International since 2002.
A winner of several piano competitions, Anita has appeared as piano soloist with the
Omaha Symphony, the Fort Wayne Philharmonic, the Pueblo Symphony, the Oberlin
Orchestra, the University of Iowa Orchestra, and the Salem Chamber Orchestra. She
was pianist for the Iowa Center for New Music and was piano soloist in the Berg
Chamber Concerto, a work she also performed with the Contemporary Music
Ensemble at Pacific Lutheran University.
​
Anita performs regularly as soloist and chamber musician. As a member of Trio Northwest (piano, violin, cello) in residence at Willamette University, Anita (along with colleagues Daniel Rouslin and Bruce McIntosh) toured South America as winners of the U.S. Information Agency “Artistic Ambassador” auditions. The Trio performed 23 concerts and presented master classes in 5 countries.
​
A highlight of Anita’s career was her performance of Brahms’ second Piano Concerto with the Salem Chamber Orchestra in 2015.
​
Since 1997, Anita has immersed herself in the field of kinesthetic re-education as it relates to musicians’ health. In this, Anita is aligned with a growing national community of musicians using the latest information from anatomy, physiology, neurophysiology, and cognitive science to describe and secure the safest, most efficient, and most expressive movements in playing.
​
Anita has given numerous presentations, workshops, and guest residencies on musicians’ coordinate movement for music teachers’ organizations, at colleges and universities, and as a presenter at conferences focusing on music performance, Body Mapping, and the Alexander Technique. Guest residencies have included the Two Piano Institute of the Ernest Bloch Music Festival, the University of New Hampshire, The Oberlin College-Conservatory of Music, The University of Ohio Akron, The Berklee College of Music, the University of Nevada Las Vegas, the Montana State Music Teachers’ Association, and for
musicians’ groups in Geneva, Switzerland and Burgundy, France.
Anita recently joined the faculty of The Exhale, an international forum on musicians’ health and well-being, and has presented several courses (given over Zoom) on that platform.
​
Intensely interested in the connections between coordinate movement and musical structure, Anita has developed several presentations on this topic. Understanding Music’s Multiple Layers: Translating the Layered Organization of Music into Movement and Mapping the Movement Journey: Departures, Arrivals, and Points of Interest Along the Way each explore how a complete marriage between the structure and emotion of the music and the movements needed to express it can be developed right from the beginning of the preparation process. In other words, the music itself can be the catalyst for our movement choices.
Anita lives in Salem, Oregon with her husband and their two Samoyed dogs.
