Jenny Bienemann

It sure looks easier than it is.

Teaching, that is.

I say this with the certitude only someone who has taught a mere four classes over two days, can say. And, I was co-teaching! Robin Bienemann and I did it…

Jenny Bienemann:  ‘TIS THE SEASON TO GIVE – give something up, that is

I have given up so many things, so many ways, so many times. 

You learn a lot when you let go. That’s why it is important that…

Before you read this, take a look at these videos: Welcome in the Light and Your Own Cup.

I get excited.

A wonderful new venue in Arlington Heights, Hey Nonny, has invited Robin and me to take over the…

Want to do something fun?  Watch Jon Langford's Haiku Milieu song, Tears like Stars Must Fall. 

Jon Langford.  He's the real deal.  I'm going to guess you know that already. Visual artist, musician, poet, writer.  The Mekons.  The Waco…

Before you read this, enjoy Kate's "We Get to the End" video for the Haiku Milieu Series.

Kate FitzGerald.  'Tis Herself.  She can be nothing other than herself.  This is a quality I admire and wish to emulate.  But somehow…

Gerald Dowd.  I had seen him on stage.  I had been on stage with him.  But I had never really “seen” him, until a Christmas show hosted by Rachel Drew at Sylvie’s. 

He took the stage.  “Oh good,” I thought…

If you see Chris Neville on stage, you know you’re in good hands.  You're at a party.

The music is going to be smokin’.  You will be transported.  And you will laugh!  

The kind of laughing you did when life…

You remember the story of how Robin and I started going to FitzGeralds, right?  How he lured me there and I went reluctantly, with the promise of meeting this one wonderful musical couple?  

One thing led to another, and between…

Dag Juhlin: the man, the myth, the legend.  I snuck out of my house to see him play at the West End in The Slugs.  When my mom found out, she grounded me for weeks. I snuck out the next…

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…