Willa & Driftsong
Willa Grey is a Perry & Walters Music Foundation Scholar, classical-trained pianist, singer-songwriter, composer, low G ukulele enthusiast, and the owner of DRIFTSONG. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Music in classical piano and dove into performing and private music education, teaching students of all ages and levels. Her love for people compelled her early on to explore the connection between music and wellness, and over the years, she has done music sessions with Alzheimer’s Patients, ukulele lessons with stroke survivors, songwriting with people navigating difficult life seasons, and group music classes for children with mental and physical disabilities. Her current obsession is helping tone-deaf adults learn how to sing (read about that HERE).
[listen to Willa in concert]
Connecting people to their innate creativity has become one of Willa’s deepest life passions. Her work has included collaborations with Girls Rock Birmingham, Music World (Portland), The Sunshine School, Searcy Community School of Music, The Journey to Justice Conference (Nottingham, England), Mason Music Studios (Birmingham), Blue Bear Music (San Francisco), The Magic Flute (Marin County), The Quarry Advanced Memory Care Unit (Vancouver, WA), and Circle of Life Hospice (NWA).
As it is in Willa’s nature to drift, in the past decade alone, she has lived in four different regions of the United States and six countries. In 2019, she began transitioning all her teaching online to form a hybrid lessons studio that would exist wherever she was in the world and allow her to continue mentoring students through weekly online private lessons paired with in-person recitals in Marin County, workshops, recording sessions, and songwriting retreats—
and so, DRIFTSONG came into being.
It’s been over five years, and the studio is thriving and everything she envisioned it would be. Willa just flew back to San Francisco to throw DRIFTSONG’s sixth in-person showcase in Marin County, California, and then on to Southern Mexico, where she is now soaking in the culture, writing new music, enjoying summer, and envisioning the next place her path will take her.
There is ever more to learn
and discover
and Willa intends
to see it all
and take you with her.
This instrumental piece is one of my favorite compositions. The piano part came to me in its entirety in less than an hour and seemed to write itself. It’s such a gift when that happens, and every time I play it, I feel more of the pain that composed it leave my body. This is how artists heal.
[ learn about songwriting in the studio HERE ]
[Willa Playing “Dock of the Bay”]
STUDIO Snapshots
Blog
a song to memorialize those months
We howled at the moon
together every night at 8pm
You need more
music in your life.
