Senior Teaching Professor, Music and Applied Instructor, Piano
- MM, San Diego State University, Performance - Piano
- BM, Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, Performance - Piano
Gema García Grijalva is a pianist with a broad range of professional experience as a performer, teacher, and community outreach entrepreneur. Originally from Tijuana, México, she started her music education at the age of eight with Prof. José Cabrera and decided to pursue a career in music 11 years after that, she now holds a Master’s degree in Music from San Diego State University, and a Bachelor’s degree in Music from Autonomous University of Baja California, both with specializations in Piano Performance. Gema started her training as a collaborative pianist in 2006 and since then has been consistently participating from several performances every year. Gema is currently living in San Diego, California, where she works as an Adjunct Instructor of Music (Collaborative Pianist) for University of San Diego. She also teaches piano to young students at San Diego State University’s Community Music School and collaborates with several musicians having the opportunity to be an active performer in the San Diego and Baja California regions. One of her recent projects is Duo Lebhaft, a musical ensemble next to clarinetist and USD Faculty Alice Gallagher.
Gema’s main areas of interest are philosophy of education, critical pedagogy, and collaborative performance. Her future projects include research in those areas, and the practical adaptation of critical educational theories in music education and music performance.
Professional Experience
Gema’s performance experience extends from being a classical performer to a vocal and instrumental collaborative pianist, with consistent activity throughout the year in recitals, competitions, masterclasses, and special events. As a soloist Gema has participated in numerous recitals in Tijuana and San Diego since 2005. Her soloist experience also includes competitions such as “IV Bi-annual International Piano Competition” in Mexicali, Baja California, where she obtained the second place in two occasions. She was also selected to perform at the Schlern International Music Festival in Völs am Schlern, Italy, where she had the opportunity to play in master-classes given by internationally renowned piano professors, such as Erna Gulabyan, Tatiana Gerasimova, and Mark Fouxman. In San Diego and Mexico she has performed as a soloist in numerous master-classes for teachers such as Geoffrey Burleson, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Vadim Kholodenko, and Farizat Tchibirova.
Her experience as a vocal accompanist has included being a rehearsal pianist, vocal coach, and music director in numerous collaborations, from bel-canto recitals and choral performances, to participations in festivals such as “Opera on the Streets Tijuana Festival”, “Alfonso Ortiz Tirado Festival” in Sonora, “Festival del Canto Entre Piedras” in Tecate, and vocal/opera productions such as “L’elisir d’amore”, “Marriage of Figaro”, “La Canterina”, “Betly”, “Il Barbieri di Siviglia”, “Carmina Burana”, “Le nozze di Figaro”, “The Idea,” and extracts from “Aida”, “La Traviata”, among others.
At San Diego State University, Gema was granted an assistantship to work as a Collaborative Pianist for SDSU Symphony Orchestra, SDSU Wind Symphony, and the Opera program. Gema’s experience as an instrumental accompanist comprises collaborating with musicians from all instrument families and has taken her to work in the studios of teachers such as Travis Maril, Pam Martchev, Dr. Eric Starr, Sheryl Renk, John Wilds, Pei-Chun Tsai, and Chi-Yuan Chen, among others.
Areas of Interest
Gema has a strong interest in education that has been growing over 14 years of experience teaching piano lessons and other music courses, such as Music History, Music Theory and Music Appreciation. This has motivated her to create projects for community outreach that promote music and the arts, such as the First International Youth Piano Festival in Tijuana, which included master-classes, conferences, and recitals of solo and chamber music by jazz and classical performers. She led this project for two years as a director and coordinator, with the main goal of creating an open platform where professional performers and young artists could converse and work on their craft together.
More recently, after volunteering as a music teacher for low-income children in Tijuana, she had the initiative to create an independent project where she collaborated with other musicians in the state of Baja to bring a free community music program for low-income communities in the city of Tijuana. In San Diego, she worked as a Music Director for Faith Lutheran Church, where she created a Community Music Program where children in the community could have free access to music classes and perform singing in the Children Choir.