About Mary

Saxophonist Mary Petrich enjoys a vibrant career as performer and teacher. Her deep love for creativity and improvisation has led her to explore traditional and non-traditional approaches which have developed into a very personalized style of playing and teaching music. Her education focus includes improvisation for all players and saxophone study in both jazz and classical repertoire.

 

Along with being the director of the Women’t Jazz Initiative at the Nash, she is founder of Nash Jazz DivAZ, a project in collaboration with The Nash, that supports youth education for girls. Mary also teaches jazz improvisation and jazz combos at Phoenix College. As a performer, Mary has been pursuing her own vision in large and small group settings. She performs with The Phoenix Symphony, The Jazz Women All-Stars, The Temptations, AZ Festival Orchestra, The Phoenix Chorale, among others. She leads her own group “OpenHand Quartet”.

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Her most current projects are The Jazz Women Collective, featuring the works of female composers and performers, and The Nash Little Big Band, a nine-piece ensemble comprised of a woman majority. 

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PRESS

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Meet Mary Petrich Canvas Rebel August 2024

Excerpt: "What interests me most is practicing and learning, so that in whatever situation I am playing in, I am able to express musical ideas at that moment in time. I want to go as deep as possible in myself and in the music. Creatively, I want to be able to trust whatever comes out of my instrument and follow that creativity without hesitation or fear."