School of Music

jena

Dr. Jena Gardner

Associate Professor of Horn
Coordinator, Winds & Percussion Area
Director, WIU Community Music School

JE-Gardner2@wiu.edu
gardnerhorn.com | wiu.edu/horn

Jena Gardner, DMA, is Associate Professor of Horn, Coordinator of the Winds & Percussion Area, and Director of the Community Music School at Western Illinois University (WIU). Since joining the faculty in 2018, her teaching has been described as “warm . . . and infused with curiosity and passion.” Her expertise in holistic horn pedagogy was recognized in 2023 with WIU’s Provost’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. In 2024, Dr. Gardner published Long Tone Duets for Horn with Mountain Peak Music, a collection now regarded as an essential resource for developing tone, technique, and musical expression.

An active performer, Dr. Gardner appears regularly as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral horn player across the United States and abroad. She has toured in Europe, Mexico, Japan, and the U.S., and has performed with Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Intercontemporain, the Lucerne Festival Academy Orchestra, the Steamboat Springs Festival Orchestra, and served as acting 2nd and 4th horn of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra.

At WIU, she performs with the Camerata Woodwind Quintet and the La Moine Brass Quintet. She is also a founding member of the Cobalt Horn Quartet, winners of the 2018 International Horn Society Horn Quartet Competition. The Quartet has performed at international conferences and festivals, as well as universities across the United States including the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, Indiana University, Louisiana State University, and the University of Texas at Austin, among others. They are scheduled to perform at the 2026 Texas Music Educators Association Clinic/Convention in February. Listen to recordings of her performances at gardnerhorn.com.

Dr. Gardner’s research focuses on musician health and injury prevention. In 2021, she received a WIU Foundation research grant for her project Overuse Injury Prevention and Rehabilitation in Brass Pedagogy, presented at both the International Horn Society and the International Women’s Brass Conference. She is certified in the Essentials of Performing Arts Medicine and curates BrassInjury.com, a resource for musicians and educators.

She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts from Northwestern University, where she studied with Gail Williams and Jon Boen, and was involved in presenting the 2016 and 2017 Peak Performance Horn Symposiums. She also holds Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees in Horn Performance from Carnegie Mellon University and Northwestern University. Her teachers have included Gail Williams, Jon Boen, Bill Caballero, Dave Krehbiel, and Jennie Blomster.