Jennifer Thomas is an American Billboard charting pianist. Her compositions have touched an incredibly wide audience (1.5 million users on Pandora). I previously interviewed Jennifer for our Spring 2016 issue, and we’ve exchanged a few fun messages related to how her music has become popular for figure skaters around the world since then. With the release of her new music video “The Red Aspens” it felt like a good time to catch up!
Natasha: It’s been 2 years since your last release. You’ve been open on social media about needing to take the time off. When did you first start writing “The Red Aspen’s” and what is the inspiration behind it?
Jennifer: So yes, I decided to take a much-needed sabbatical from music after my summer tour last year, which was great. Then the pandemic hit earlier this year, and after the panic and stress finally settled down, I found myself at home and feeling more inspired than ever to write new music, and also create new music videos. This is something I could do from home and so I was excited. “The Red Aspens” was actually a song that debuted on my very first album in 2007, and I orchestrated it for my 10-year anniversary release of the album. So it’s not new, but the video is. 🙂
Natasha: Your music video is absolutely gorgeous. How does that process go for you. Do you storyboard everything or is there some spontaneous footage also?
Jennifer Thomas: Thank you so much. For this video, I storyboarded the shots out, and had a vision for the “walking” footage of me hiking through the mountains, and timing the transitions with the beats of the music. After that, it’s about lighting and trying to get beautiful shots in great locations.
Natasha: The quality you and your husband produce is incredible. How did you start learning about filming etc? And any tips for other musicians learning to DYI due to covid?
Jennifer Thomas: Aw thank you. I feel very lucky that Will and I get to work as a team to create these videos… For our smaller “in-house” videos like this, we do everything ourselves, whereas for larger-scale videos (like “The Fire Within”) we use a crew. Everything we’ve done has just taken time, learning, tutorials, research, and acquiring good equipment. Best advice for other artists is to take lots of notes on things you notice about the videos you love, and try to emulate that.
Natasha: When it comes to the pianos used in your music videos, are they rentals or do you have a special travel piano just for this purpose?
Jennifer Thomas: I am a Yamaha sponsored artist, and so they will bring me pianos if needed. For example, the pianos on my “The Fire Within” video for both the theater and the desert scenes were provided by Yamaha. They’ve also provided pianos for concerts for me. But for these videos that are just shot by my husband and I, oftentimes we are just driving around and looking for locations and it’s very “on the fly”, So I own a 6-ft Yamaha that usually stays in our garage filming studio. We haul that around for filming now. I also have another nicer 7 ft Yamaha that stays in my living room but we don’t take that one anywhere.
Natasha: Your music has been the soundtrack to so many wonderful skating performances recently. Can you imagine anyone, in particular, using this in a routine next season?
Jennifer Thomas: I get so excited to see skaters using my music. This is a slower-paced song, but the middle section does ramp up in tempo and becomes very exciting so I could see skaters using this piece. It doesn’t have to be this song, but I would love to see Nathan Chen or Mariah Bell skate to one of my songs. #bucketlist
If you haven’t watched Jennifer’s new video yet, get yourself some hot chocolate and snuggle into a warm blanket and enjoy the perfect soundtrack for Fall ☕🍂
Visit Jennifer’s Official Website and learn how you can support her on Patreon
The Red Aspens by Jennifer Thomas is gorgeous and magical I feel uplifted by the beautiful melody. Jennifer’s new video fully compliments the music and shows she is a master of her craft.