Originally from Boulder, Colorado, Heather Truesdall is a cellist and creative collaborator living and working in the UK. She is co-founder of the contemporary music ensemble Jetsam, listed in Folk Radio UK’s Best Albums 2014 for their release A Dreamlife of Hackney Marshes and has performed at the Vortex Jazz Club, the Matsuri Festival (Trafalgar Square), Cropredy Folk Festival and the Barbican Centre among others. As a composer and creative music workshop leader, she has run projects for Barbican Guildhall Creative Learning, the London Symphony Orchestra, and around the world through Singapore’s Yong Siew Toh Conservatoire, Denver University’s Music School and through Creative Connections in Grand Rapids, Alexandria and Baltimore. She recently spent a month at the Beit Almusica conservatory in a Palestinian village in Israel, working with music teachers and students to develop their creative music programme.
Heather’s passion is sharing her love of music and she has taught cello privately and in small groups for over 20 years. This experience extends from teaching with Sprouts, a Suzuki and creative music programme for young string players ages 4-8 at the Archway Children’s Centre in London, through to work with the Tower Hamlets Arts and Music Education Service. She has also mentored music students through Aldeburgh Young Musicians in Suffolk. Weaving together her love of both music and mindfulness, Heather completed the Mindfulness Teacher Training certificate through Bangor University and now teaches Mindfulness for Performers.
After moving from London to the west country and having a baby boy in 2015, Heather is back to work playing with the newly formed Corner Pieces band, running Groove Tots, a music class for families with young children, and creating the new concert series Groove Tots Gigs, featuring high quality live music at a family-friendly time.