About me
Joan Koenig began the piano when she was five years old, in Simi Valley, California. When her family moved to Seattle, Washington, she wanted to join a local youth orchestra, so she needed to learn an orchestral instrument. She chose the flute at the age of nine. She graduated from the Juilliard School in 1981, then pursued her studies in France with Jean Pierre Rampal and Alain Marion, and in Switzerland with Aurèle Nicolet. In Europe, Joan played as a soloist and chamber musician with Alexander Lagoya, Patrice Fontanarosa and Frédérique l’Odéon, among others.
Passionate about teaching, Joan taught in several Parisian conservatories before deciding to create the École Koenig American Conservatory. The American Conservatory opened in 1986 with ten flute and piano students between the ages of five and ten. Joan launched a number of “firsts” both in the school and in France. The École Koenig was the first music school in France to offer a jazz program to children. After jazz, the school created the first musical comedy program in Parisian theaters, starring children. Joan launched a series of public jazz master classes with world- renowned musicians such as Herbie Hancock, Branford Marsalis and John McLaughlin. Good ideas are meant to be replicated, and all of these programs exist now in schools all over France. In 2008, she opened the first musical preschool in France, the Preschool for Music and Art, which became L’École Koenig Preschool, and Kindergarten in 2013. It has been so successful that a second campus was opened in the fall of 2013 and a third in 2016.
Joan was invited to the Salzburg Global Seminar conference on “The Neuroscience of Art” in 2014. She continues to collaborate with the neuroscientific community around the world sharing her empirical data and integrating the important elements of cutting-edge research into her continually evolving programs. Her own musical path did not end with classical music. Joan has worked with important jazz musicians, both studying and performing. She spent three months in India studying Hindustani music and performed with important Indian musicians from Benares, both in Benares and Paris. In her spare time, she enjoys traveling and learning languages. She speaks French, German, Italian, and is delighting in starting to learn Spanish.
