Miss Molly Wishart (Piano)
Miss Molly Wishart BMus (Hons)
Molly began learning the piano at the early age of five. From there, she began performing at a number of festivals, concerts and gigs. At school, she performed regularly with the vocal ensemble, jazz band, orchestra and in 2016, she won the annual Northamptonshire anti-bullying song competition where an official recording was made of the song at The Stables’ Studio in Milton Keynes.
Although Molly was classically trained in both piano and keyboard studies achieving grade eight in both instruments, she enjoys performing and teaching a wide range of genres including jazz, classical, musical theatre and pop/rock.
Molly has recently graduated from Queen’s University with a First Class Honours Degree in Music. At University, Molly decided to specialise in jazz and began taking lessons in advanced harmony, theory, improvisation, reharmonization and composition from renowned Northern Irish jazz pianist, Scott Flanigan.
Molly performs with the Queen’s University Big Band (alongside the likes of jazz pianist and musical director, Stephen Barnett and contemporary composer, Prof. Piers Hellawell). She also performs with a jazz-pop quartet, a blues band and also as a solo pianist. In 2019, she won the Robb Performance Scholarship for exceptional practical performance merits recognition.
As a keen songwriter and composer, Molly has studied not only jazz composition but also film and classical contemporary composition with Dr. Simon Mawhinney. Within this module, she composed for Belfast’s contemporary music group, Hard Rain Ensemble. Molly is passionate and confident in writing, arranging and scoring for a wide range of instruments and is more than happy to share this knowledge with her students.
Upon taking a huge step forward in the Belfast music scene with her band, The French Martinis, Molly has gained an array of gigging and recording experiences. The band’s most recent original song written by Molly, was played by BBC Radio Ulster on Linley Hamilton’s ‘Jazz World’ as well as Kathy Clugston’s ‘The Ticket’.
Not only does Molly’s warm and friendly nature enable her to take pride in making sure a student feels at ease during their lessons, she is also a dedicated and enthusiastic performer, composer and teacher ensuring a student is able to get the most out of each music lesson.
