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Orice Lee Jenkins (born September 24th, 1994) , is an American self-taught professional pianist, guitarist, composer, and arranger named All-State Musician by the Connecticut Music Educators Association. Biography Jenkins was born in Hartford, Connecticut to Vanessa Ann Jenkins. Jenkins' love for music began at the age of 4, when his mother bought him a drumset. His next instrument was given to him by his aunt, Victoria, and was his very first keyboard. Although it had no more than 25 keys, it proved itself very useful when putting on small concerts for his family. Jenkins and his only known sister and sibling, Olivia R. Jenkins, sang and played popular children's songs like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Mary Had A Little Lamb. Jenkins began singing and playing the saxophone in school at age ten. He was accepted into an Inter-Elementary Honors Choir program in the 5th grade. Musical Breakthrough The Beginning In 2005, Jenkins received a 61 key synthesizer for Christmas. With the keyboard came piano lessons at a nearby music store. Jenkins lasted a couple of months before deciding to quit in the spring of 2006. He completed his first year at middle school while participating in no extracurricular activities. In his eighth grade year, Jenkins began to take a guitar class at East Hartford Middle School. The songs that he learned were similar to the ones he had learned as a child on his keyboard. He gained an interest in music and began to use to study music theory. On November 3rd, 2007, Jenkins wrote his first song entitled "Tick Tock." The catchy hip-hop song contained no musical notes, a simple beat, and lyrics lamenting about the hardships of a homeless person, trying to find his way. Which Way Is Up? On November 9th, 2007, Jenkins lost his aunt, Victoria D. Jenkins, to uterin cancer. The heartbroken musician used the guitar that was given to him by his aunt, to write a song in her honor entitled "Why?" Jenkins kept writing new material and recording new beats. He called the compilation of his music, "Which Way Is Up," referring the fact that the lyrics to the songs had no relation at all. With this album title in mind, Jenkins wrote the title track about a man who appears to wake up one morning with amnesia. Around the Piano After realizing that most of the music he had previously written was garbage, he discarded the lyrics and went on hiatus, trying to write new music. By the summer of 2008, Jenkins was an accomplished pianist and was accepted into the prestigious MAT (Multicultural Art and Technology) program. In this program, Jenkins wrote on of his most famous tunes, Around the Piano. After the summer had ended, Jenkins began his freshman year at East Hartford High School. He had been recruited to join the school's Concert Orchestra and had been asked to arrange an orchestral version of Alicia Keys' 2004 hit If I Ain't Got You in a medley with Alicia Keys' 2001 hit Fallin, and Beethoven's Fur Elise. The director of East Hartford's Fine Arts Program noticed Jenkins' composing and arranging talent and suggested that he enter the Composition Competition in the All State's hosted by the Connecticut Music Educators Association. Around the Piano was chosen to be performed by Jenkins at the Connecticut Convention Center on April 2nd, 2009.
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