About Speaker

Jenny Conlee is a pianist, accordionist, and keyboardist, from Portland Oregon, who is best known as a founding member of the indie-rock band The Decemberists. She plays and records with many other PNW artists as well, including The Minus 5, Black Prairie, Margo Cilker, Casey Neill, Glitterfox, among others. She graduated from Oregon State University with a degree in piano performance and began touring with the band Calobo, for ten years. After Calobo disbanded, Jenny joined The Decemberists, in 2000, and still performs and records with them.

She is also a composer of instrumental music and, in 2015, she released “French Kayaking Music” with Steve Drizos, an album of instrumental music used in the documentary Voyagers Without Trace by Ian McClusky. This album is a mixture of French café music, ragtime, and movie soundscapes.

In March, 2023, she released a new solo album, Tides: Pieces for Accordion and Piano. “Tides” was written during the pandemic at an artist’s retreat on the coast in Washington State. The accordion pieces are part of the “Seaview Suite” and are written in each of the seven Greek modes and reflect the natural environment around Seaview, Washington. The piano pieces are a collection of “Ostinatos,” using repetitive bass patterns.