Jenny Bienemann

FitzGerald’s is much more than a legendary venue that, under the leadership of Bill FitzGerald and the watchful eye of Kate FitzGerald, was the first to present artists like Clifton Chenier, Marcia Ball, Pat McLaughlin.  It’s fans are legion, it’s…

When you get together with friends, and start talking, the line blurs between collaboration and life, doesn't it?  If you've got the right friends, and if you're reading this blog I am quite sure that you do, chances are excellent…

All collaboration begins with a willingness to hear and know what you want to create.  Willingness is the soil that allows an idea to germinate in your consciousness. 

Maybe the idea got there through conscious cultivation, maybe through benign neglect…

I am lucky enough to be in a couple of songwriter groups, one based in Chicago and one with people from all over the US.  The internet-based group is called The Tunesmiths, and I just spent September collaborating with two…

March 2020. It was a tumultuous time.  We were running on adrenaline.

When you’re presented with a cresting wave, you either get out of its way, or face it. 

There is no way to get out of the way of…

"I'm just going to ask him again."

"Jenny!!!"

My husband Robin Bienemann hardly ever uses exclamation points in his speaking voice. 

But there he was, and there they were, telling me to not ask this artist who had turned me…

What if?

Sometimes I'm not ready to do something.  Or I need to do something, and I can't get started.

What if, I ask myself.

What if we were going to do Haiku Milieu volume 2, say, by the 2020…

The thing people most want to do in this life, is give. They want to give of themselves, and have it be received. 

All collaboration is, is: giving and receiving. Giving and receiving. Giving and receiving, over and over again…

Amy Dixon-Kolar wrote a beautiful song for the July 16, 2020 Haiku Milieu show.  You can find it here.  

As a singer songwriter, Amy has traveled the country, playing coffeehouses, clubs, schools, college campuses, festivals and house concerts.  Her…

Sue Fink and Rebecca Jasso brought “Suddenly Hope” to life, together.  You can see it here: Suddenly Hope.

You can see the Haiku Milieu show that it is part of here: 7.16.20 Haiku Milieu Director's Cut. 

Sue Fink…

It is genuinely difficult to find the words that convey your gratitude for your collaborator’s work, and yet express that something else is needed. The ghosts of your own hurt feelings, the ways you may have hurt others by telling…

James Curley and I have been friends for a long time.  I daresay, we have both been Irish that whole entire time.  We have certainly both been writing songs that whole time.  Very quickly, it became clear that we had…

I don’t know why a band that interprets and covers Bob Dylan songs has turned out to be a hotbed of personal and professional creativity.  I love being in the band The Zimmermen so much. 

First and foremost, because it’s…

Steve Dawson.  Singer.  Songwriter.  Performer.  He will break your heart and mend it at the exact same time.  

We worked on this song together for the 7.16 Haiku Milieu: Begin with the End in Mind, and you can add it…

You can get lost in a work of art.  Utterly, totally, devotedly lost. 

If healing is merely the willingness to change, then art that places you back in the center of your life, rather than in the periphery of everyone…