Music Program: New Chapter, New Staff to Carry us Forward
The year 2024 for UUFH is starting out with an exciting new chapter for our music program!
Jenna Jaffe has joined UUFH as Music and Choir Director and Shirley Gruenhut will be serving as our Piano Accompanist.
We will welcome them at our January 28 worship service, when they will be performing with our UUFH choir.
Jenna Jaffe has been performing music, dancing, and making art since she was a child. She has a vocal performance degree from the University of California at Santa Barbara and extensive graduate vocal work from the University of Southern California. Jenna is multifaceted. She is a multi-instrumentalist who has taught for thirty years. She is mixed-media visual artist who focuses on equality for all life. Jenna teaches ESL at AB Tech, is on the board of the Asheville Area Piano Forum, and both the National & local (VTMLA) Music Teachers Association. She is also a Certified Peer Support Specialist and an ordained minister.
In 2022 she received a Tzedek Social Justice Impact Award for her musical and artistic work engaged in community activism and system change.
In her “spare” time she gardens, studies languages, mindfulness, energy healing, and spends time with her family and animals. She also teaches and performs regularly.
Shirley Gruenhut is an avid chamber music player and New York native who now calls Hendersonville home. A graduate of Brooklyn College, she was the first time recipient of the prestigious Charles Ives Award for excellence in musical performance. She studied graduate level piano accompaniment at the Manhattan School of Music. She assisted at the Metropolitan Opera House studios and has performed regularly in New York, as well as Europe and Israel. Shirley is a member of ACMA-Association of Classical Musicians and Artists, Sing For Hope, and ACMP-Association of Chamber Music Players. She is also a professional member of AAPF, the Asheville Area Piano Forum. She was founder of several chamber music ensembles