Jennifer Bernard is a professional musician based in Austin, Texas. She performs frequently with the Austin Symphony and the Austin Opera Orchestra; and she currently serves as principal oboist for the Victoria Symphony and English hornist for the El Paso Symphony, Corpus Christi Symphony, and Central Texas Philharmonic. She has been heard on National Public Radio’s Classical Guitar Alive and American Public Media’s Performance Today, as well as on PBS and at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas.
Learning to thrive while dealing with the challenges of the freelance musician’s life has been a career-long passion for Jennifer. She has relished finding solutions and coping skills around managing the irregular schedules and paychecks, learning to effectively use unstructured and solitary preparation time, dealing with performance pressures, nurturing motivation levels during slow times, embracing the superpowers within the rich emotional life of a highly sensitive being, and finding life management solutions that provide both the consistency needed for progress and the flexibility needed for the musician’s life.
Jennifer created her own personal Thriving Guide based on the solutions she cultivated around her own traps and needs, and she loves sharing her findings with others. She has been coaching her students and colleagues for over a decade, but is opening up her practice to help those dealing with the effects of the sudden lockdowns and shelter-in-place orders.