Piano and Voice

Lily Alter is a jazz vocalist, pianist, and educator from Oak Park, Illinois. She received her undergraduate degree in Jazz Studies at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan in the spring of 2023. There, she was a member of their premiere vocal group, Gold Company, played piano in the WMU Jazz Lab Band, and sang with the WMU Jazz Orchestra. At WMU, she also won Downbeat jazz awards in 2023 and 2024 for Outstanding Performance as a Vocal Jazz Soloist. She began teaching private voice and piano during her senior year at the Fox Music Center and Marshall Music, and enjoyed serving as a choral scholar and the director of vacation Bible school at Bethany Reformed Church in Kalamazoo.

She graduated from University of North Texas with her Master’s of Music degree in May of 2025, where she was a teaching fellow in the vocal jazz program, an alto in UNT Jazz Singers, and the vocalist for the 2023-24 One O’Clock Lab Band. At UNT, she directed vocal jazz ensembles West End and Third Street and taught private jazz voice. She continued teaching privately in the Dallas area at Lone Star Music Academy, where she focused on early childhood music lessons.

Recently, she completed her artist residency as a songwriter with the Sault Area Art Center in Michigan and was a finalist in the 2026 Ella Fitzgerald Vocal Jazz Competition. She spent the last year as a private contemporary voice and piano instructor and church music director in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, and is excited to be back in the Chicago area to teach and perform.

Teaching philosophy:

Lily’s experience in many different contemporary genres including pop, jazz, and musical theater allows students to gain skills in different musical styles. Lily’s lessons are highly individualized coaching sessions involving skill-building activities that are specifically tailored to each unique piano, voice, or early childhood music student.

Voice and piano lessons begin with a warm-up, then focus on solo repertoire, technique challenges, and new skills. Students will leave each lesson with a specific practice plan for next week to maintain and build musical progress. Lily uses the Faber piano curriculum to guide lessons and focus on correct technique, as well as music theory and aural skills, while at the same time maintaining a sense of fun. We work towards exciting goals, such as small rewards, like stickers, and eventually our recital performances!

Lily also has experience working with students as young as 3 through early childhood music (ECM) lessons, which involve musical games, light singing and piano, hand instruments, and listening activities. Four words to describe Lily's teaching style are warm, enthusiastic, encouraging, and collaborative.