Guitar & Piano Lessons with Kenzie O'Dell

Dr. R Mackenzie O’Dell (Kenzie for short) has been a musician their whole life. Taking piano lessons as a child inspired in them an insatiable curiosity for music, leading them to learn guitar in high-school, study voice performance at the College of Wooster, and pursue a master's and doctorate in music theory at the University of Minnesota. In their dissertation, they developed techniques to comparatively analyze multimedia works from ballet to musical theater to cinema to video games. These days, they perform regularly around the Twin Cities both as a solo acoustic act and as a bassist in a pop-rock band.

Beyond performing, Kenzie has a passion for educating young musicians. Inspiring and enabling others to express themselves through art is paramount to their teaching philosophy. They believe that fostering students’ musical imagination is just as important as developing literacy and technique. Enabling students to direct their own studies through curiosity and exploration is central to Kenzie’s pedagogy.