Pianist Ellen Fast is an active contributor to Pittsburgh’s music scene. She founded the Jade Piano Trio, which gave its debut performance in October 2018 as part of the Music in a Great Space series at Shadyside Presbyterian Church. She collaborates often with area vocalists and instrumentalists and has appeared with the Pittsburgh Concert Chorale, the Incidental Chamber Players, and OvreArts. She plays regularly for the Mt. Lebanon High School choirs and has served as rehearsal accompanist for Resonance Works | Pittsburgh.
Ellen also loves choral singing and is a member of several area choirs: the chamber choirs Pittsburgh Camerata and Voces Solis (which performed at the 2018 Eastern Division ACDA conference and has collaborated with the Chamber Orchestra of Pittsburgh); and the Chancel Choir at Shadyside Presbyterian Church. She was a member of the twelve-voice professional women’s ensemble Seraphic Singers and was a Core member and occasional accompanist for the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh.
Ellen received a master’s degree in collaborative piano performance from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she was a student of Martha Fischer and a recipient of several scholarships. Her undergraduate degree is from Goshen College in northern Indiana, where she studied with Marvin Blickenstaff and was a winner of the school’s annual Concerto-Aria Competition.
Ellen recently completed a diploma in Horticulture Technology at Bidwell Training Center and is working at a garden center in the North Hills. She also proofreads books for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and music scores for A-R Editions. In her free time, she enjoys baking, doing the New York Times crossword puzzle, and gardening.
