About
Jenna Hardy Pedersen is the owner of Pedersen Music Studio in Spirit Lake and Spencer, Iowa. She specializes in teaching percussion, piano, ukulele and guitar to all ages and abilities.
She opened her first teaching studio in Spencer in 2011, then expanded as a traveling teacher in the Iowa Great Lakes in 2015. In 2018, she joined the teaching collective at JJ School of Music in Spirit Lake before moving to an independent studio in 2024. She continues to operate studio spaces in Spencer and Spirit Lake.
She completed her Bachelor’s in Jazz Composition and graduated Cum Laude from Berklee College of Music in Boston in 2008. In 2010, she graduated from the University of Northern Iowa, as the first woman to obtain a Master’s in Jazz Pedagogy from the University, after working as a graduate assistant in the Jazz Department.
In 2012, she traveled to Chimala, Tanzania to work at Igumbilo Lutheran Girls Secondary School teaching the History of American Popular Music. She also developed the “What is Rock ‘n Roll?” Curriculum for the Iowa Rock ‘n Roll Music Association. Pedersen is the author of the Guitar for Kids course, sold internationally for teachers wanting to learn a success-based guitar method book for young kids. In 2014, she trained with a rural work-to-learn program for speciality fields in underrepresented communities as a Clinical Music Practitioner for hospice, home care and memory care. She also works as an arranger and marching percussion clinician in the upper midwest.
Pedersen has studied with Dean Anderson (Percussion for the Boston Pops), Harry Sheppard (Vibraphonist with Benny Goodman), Joe Galeota (West African Percussionist and professor in Boston), Dr. Robert Washut (Composer, Performer and Jazz Educator), Victor Mendoza (Percussionist and Professor of Graduate Studies at Berklee Valencia, Spain), Ed Saindon (International Clinician, Ajudacator and Recording Artist). She has had the privledge to perform with Peter Erskine, Harry Sheppard, Lalo, Nick Lane, and others.
Pedersen Music Studio 