Jennifer Ortman

Jennifer Ortman balances her life between the demands of her real estate profession and her musical avocation. Jennifer Ortman earns her living as one of Chautauqua County, New York's most successful real estate agents. In addition to selling residential real estate, Jennifer also manages properties owned by the world-renowned Chautauqua Institute.

In her spare time, Jennifer is a musician. She studied the oboe and piano for many years, and gives lessons to a select group of students.

Jennifer Ortman's Musical Background

Jennifer Ortman discovered her love of music at a very young age. She attended a workshop at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York given by Richard Kilmer. This sparked her determination to become a performing artist.

Jennifer attended the University of Illinois where she majored in music performance. She also focused on music performance graduate studies at UCLA, before returning to the University of Illinois. At her alma mater once more, Jennifer earned a master's degree in music education.

After graduation, Jennifer began teaching music at the Victor Central School located near Rochester, New York. She felt as though something was missing from her life, though. Jennifer is a real people person, and she craved an opportunity to interact with adults in her professional life.

Becoming a Real Estate Agent

Jennifer decided to become a real estate agent. The flexibility of the profession attracted her. She wanted to have an occupation that still gave her enough time to pursue her musical dreams.

Today, Jennifer is one of the most successful agents with Chautauqua County's Maple Group Real Estate company. Because of the area's association with the historic Chautauqua Institute, the properties she sells attract national interest. Jennifer uses the Internet as part of her sales process. She also uses professional publications like "Home Magazine Real Estate Guides" to promote her listings.

In 2010, Jennifer was awarded the Chautauqua County Board of Realtors coveted Presidential Bronze Award. That same year, Jennifer closed almost $1.5 million in sales.

Classical Music

Jennifer is passionate about all types of music. She enjoys everything from pop music to jazz. There's a special place in her heart, though, for classical music. Classical music is entwined with many special memories in her youth. At Christmas time, as a young girl, she loved baking cookies to the strains of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite. As an older, more experienced musician, she appreciated the mastery behind Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony.

She is very grateful to her parents for encouraging her to learn the classical oboe. Early musical education has many positive benefits.

• Music develops language abilities. Scientists have found that the parts of the brain responsible for learning music are also implicated in language. Music and language both use the left side of the brain. Learning to play an instrument, then, enhances a child's ability to process language.

• Music develops spatial intelligence. Scientists have also discovered that there's a link between musical ability and the ability to visualize things in space. Scientists dub this ability spatial intelligence. Spatial intelligence is a necessary prerequisite to solving mathematical equations.

• Music helps students score better on standardized tests. It's true! Music students score significantly better on standardized exams like the SAT and the National Merit Scholarship exams.

• Music develops multicultural awareness. Classical composers come from a variety of different cultures. Their music often incorporates folk music and other cultural motifs. Music education therefore gives students insight into the ways very different people think and live.

• Music rewards hard work and diligence. In music, you either play the right note or you don't play the right note. There is no in-between. The great thing is that nearly anyone can learn to play the right note if they work at it hard enough.

• Music enhances team spirit. Like sports, orchestral music is a form of communication among players that takes place without words. If an orchestra is going to succeed in playing a piece well, all its players must work together toward a common goal. They must strive in harmony, both literally and figuratively.

• Music helps overcome performance fears and stage fright. At some point in every young musician's life, he or she will perform in a recital. Performing regularly can help young people overcome the fear of getting up in front of other people. This is a skill that will be invaluable when young people become adults.

Jennifer Ortman Talks About Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

One of Jennifer's favorite composers is the great Russian master Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Tchaikovsky was the first Russian composer to achieve wide acclaim outside his motherland. He was a brilliant and versatile musician whose works included symphonies, concertos, ballets, chamber music and operas.

Tchaikovsky, however, lived a very unhappy life. His mother, with whom he was very close, died at a young age. Tchaikovsky suffered from deep depression throughout much of his adult life. This depression found its way into much of his work.

He was born in 1840 into a family distinguished by a lengthy history of military service. Though he showed early musical promise, young Pyotr Ilyich was trained to become a civil servant. At the age of ten, he was sent away to boarding school. Four years later, his beloved mother died. His mother's death was the impetus behind Tchaikovsky's first serious composition, a waltz.

He continued to take music lessons throughout his tenure at boarding school. When he graduated at age 19, he became a minor official with the Ministry of Justice in St. Petersburg. He kept this position for three years, all the while continuing to study music. Eventually he enrolled at the St. Petersburg Conservatory of Music.

One of Tchaikovsky's first compositions was his now famous Piano Concerto No. 1, which he wrote in 1874. This concerto is one of the most beloved musical pieces in the world today, but it was not well received initially. During the next ten years, he also wrote his first four symphonies, and many operas including the masterpiece Eugene Onegin.

In 1877, he married one of his students from the Moscow Conservatory where he worked as a music teacher. The marriage was not a success and left him damaged emotionally.

By 1880, Tchaikovsky had become famous for his musical compositions, both within Russia and abroad. In March 1884, Tsar Alexander III conferred the Order of St. Vladimir upon Tchaikovsky, a position of hereditary nobility. Tchaikovsky was awarded an annual pension of 3,000 rubles and became the court composer in all but name. Tchaikovsky died of cholera in 1893 at the age of 54.

Tchaikovsky's composition style was fundamentally different from the cerebral style of masters like Brahms and Beethoven. Brahms and Beethoven looked at music almost as an intellectual exercise. Tchaikovsky, however, was primarily concerned with music's emotional effects upon listeners. Jennifer Ortman loves to listen to Tchaikovsky's music. Jennifer Ortman travels frequently to concerts in Cleveland, Chicago and Rochester when Tchaikovsky is on the program.