Tina Richerson
“Key Leaves are essential for every saxophone player… easy to use, fit perfectly in my case and I never have to worry about the embarrassing moment of playing the wrong note because a key stuck shut.”
Tina Richerson, M.M. is an internationally touring musician, freelance saxophonist, composer, woodwind clinician, and has over 25 years experience teaching private lessons.
As a saxophonist, educator, composer and author, Tina’s life aspiration is to connect, share, and create. “It is in the moment of connecting with and helping others that we can become our truest and best self.” Teaching and playing music is her path to connecting to others, sharing knowledge and inspiring creativity through music.
Tina’s first love was music. At the age of 11 she began playing saxophone in the school band. Growing up in a faithful Mormon home she was supported in music but at age 13 when she realized she was Gay, it was the most horrifying moment of her life. (Because how can you be Gay and be Mormon?) Music, was the glue that kept her from falling apart.
In high school she had the opportunity to study privately with saxophone instructor Dr. Robert Miller from the University of Idaho. Her saxophone lessons where held 200 mile’s from her home town of Wenatchee, Washington. To make the commute she rebuilt a car engine and drive 400 miles round trip every other Saturday for two years.
Tina attended the University of Idaho where she received her Baccalaureate of Music in Saxophone performance. While in College, she came out as Lesbian and renounced the church and began the path of navigating her spirituality and sexual orientation, a very hard and messy, unclear path full of confusion and hurt. (Not a fun journey, she doesn’t recommend it.)
While attending the Univeristy of Washington to earn her Master of Music in Saxophone Performance she returned to the church, attempted to pray the gay away and become straight. This failed horribly so she left the University to work in the oil fields of Prudhoe Bay, Alaska and get away from her problems to practice her saxophone. After 8 months working on the north slope of Alaska, she returned to Seattle, completed her Masters Degree, gave up on making herself straight, found her soul mate and left the church again. Her music flourished as she co-lead the jazz quintet ‘Hard Bop or Naught’ with trumpeter Erik Esvelt, held a weekly residency at Serafina, was a member of the Seattle Women’s Jazz Orchestra and worked as a freelance musician and private music instructor.