About Us

The Willows Nest is a private home where artists regularly gather to grow and share their practice. A new collaborative node, teaching studio and production resource in the heart of Friedrichshain, Berlin.

We are an independent creative force—an impromptu art haven created and ever re-created by participating artists who aim to build community, develop individual projects, and share their practices with like minds. We are dedicated to supporting emerging work and new artists while building networks across performing disciplines, developing communities, and presenting through publication, live streaming and an online presence. Committed to the practices of Deep Listening™, improvisation, experimentation and interdisciplinary research across the arts and sciences, we engage the arts in a new way: making them right at home.

The Willows Nest is the home of composer-performer, media artist and producer, Renée T. Coulombe whose vision of a new kind of artistic community arose during her time as Assistant Professor of Music with the University of California, Riverside.  With an aim to embrace emergent and established artistic practices and make  them accessible to everyone–via intimate and engaging workshops, interactive online courses, networking and community events produced around Berlin. These events are often donation based, with no one turned away for lack of funds, believing world-class artistic education can happen in alternative and supportive spaces.

With a mission to sustain collaboration across borders, genres and disciplines, Renée’s work is dedicated to creating great art on an accessible scale, and creating vibrant new cross-genre work with a startling array of collaborators. Check out several of her projects, including IMprovised Alchemy Performance Collective, Banshee Media publishing and the Sounds Curious Podcast.

At The Willows Nest, we want to make our neighborhood, our city, our environment and our world a better place. Fostering collaboration over competition, we seek to make the experience of great art a personal one, accessible to everyone wanting to be engaged. 

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Music Courses and Lessons

We invite you to grow your musical and artistic practice at The Willows Nest through individual and group music lessons and courses. 

Develop your musical voice with a focus on production —from conception through polished work. Through exploration and experimentation and a strong critical awareness, grow your knowledge of music theory and history as you master new techniques through guided exercises, feedback and discussion.  

Group courses are cultivated with an eye on diversity of participants, topics, practices and approaches. Lessons are safe spaces to explore your own creativity, try out new techniques and get feedback. Musicians who have felt unheard, isolated or erased in other settings will find this a welcoming space.

 

Composer-performers will find lessons embrace a host of methodologies and experimental approaches. From extended instrumental techniques and bespoke notation, to interdisciplinary and site-specific structures.

While one-on-one lessons can be booked any time, group courses run for a specified number of sessions with the same small group to foster trust, mutual support and engagement within the format.


Private piano lessons with composition and theory available for those wishing to develop all three.

from concept through Post production - no matter the style
experiment and gain feedback in small groups
full studio for lessons, stage sound and post production

Production Services

Full artistic and professional media production and post for a variety of private, institutional and corporate clients.

Specializing in stage sound and live recording, audio editing, mixing and mastering, as well as original scoring for film. 

We love to work closely with artists in experimental or improvisational approaches to bring their media visions to life.

With extensive experience in creating performance documentaries and trailer editing, we help bring your recorded performance to new audiences through exceptionally edited and produced documentation ready for streaming or publication. 

Press and concept writing for artistic projects. Working directly with the artist to articulate their vision through concept statements, press releases or creative biographies. From conception through publication and distribution, we can help communicate your creative vision to a global audience. 

Full performance productions, interactive media or site specific installations for both institutional and corporate clients. Previous work supported in part by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Musikfonds, Open Meadows Foundation, and Berliner Festspiele.

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